


Shadow Magic

by Lomonaaeren



Series: July Celebration Fics 2018 [18]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark Harry Potter, Dark Lord Harry Potter, M/M, Shadows - Freeform, Slytherin Harry Potter, Weird Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-16 08:02:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 48,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15432591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: AU. Harry was born with a power the Dark Lord knows not: the magic to see into shadows, to walk the shadows, and to send the shadows everywhere. This changes his life rather dramatically.





	1. Ordinary Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Angst, AU, present tense, violence, minor character deaths, largely amoral Harry
> 
> The last of my July Celebration fics. This will be posted one chapter a day until the end of July.

Harry only realizes how extraordinary he is when he mentions that Dudley’s parents make disgusting noises when they’re rolling around together on their bed, and Dudley stares at him with blank eyes and asks, “How did you see that?”

Then, of course, Dudley tries to beat Harry _up_ for seeing that. But Harry slips around the corner and into a shadow that extends across the grass from the school building, and he winds up on the roof of the school while Dudley and his gang search in vain for him. When class is about to start again, Harry slips back down through the shadow of a tree and the shadow of a door, appearing calmly in the back of the teacher’s room just as Dudley is about to tell her a lie about Harry not being there.

So Harry doesn’t get in trouble that day. It doesn’t keep him from _ever_ getting in trouble. The teachers don’t believe Dudley’s stories that Harry disappears when he’s always right there, but Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia do.

So Harry lies in his cupboard that night with his hands behind his head to cushion it a little, and thinks.

He thought everyone saw through the shadows, they just didn’t walk in them like he does. He’s only seven, how he can be all that different? But now he thinks about the way Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon call him “freak,” and he nods. So that’s what they mean. Shadows are his friends, and not theirs.

Harry turns on the light bulb inside the cupboard and slips under the door through the shadow the light bulb casts. As always, it feels slightly cool and soft on the back of his neck and shoulders, and he sees a grey path in front of him winding through walls of darkness. Then he’s standing in the kitchen, opening the fridge carefully. He can be gone in an instant if he wakes his aunt and uncle up, but that wouldn’t stop them from suspecting him.

Harry makes himself a slice of cheese and roast beef covered with mustard and eats it, thinking. Then he slips back through the shadows cast by the lights outside and into the cupboard, only having to switch once where the lights’ shadows cross the shadow of the cupboard.

Back inside the cupboard, Harry turns off the light and starts thinking. When he assumed everyone saw through the shadows, he never tried to do anything much with it. It’s walking that’s been more useful.

But now...

*

“It’s _perfect_ marks! There’s no way he could get perfect marks in maths, Mum! _I’m_ good at maths!”

Harry widens his eyes innocently while Aunt Petunia pats sobbing Dudley on the back and glares at him over Dudley’s shoulder. He never dared get perfect marks before, because Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon would punish him. And he probably couldn’t get them even with a lot of studying.

But he can get them when he goes through the shadows into the teacher’s office and looks at the exams before she hands them out.

And now he has a weapon to fight Aunt Petunia with.

So he only waits until she sends Dudley into the kitchen with the promise of a huge chocolate ice and turns to face him. “Boy,” she begins ominously. “You _know_ that you’re not smarter than my Dudders, you must have cheated—”

“You make a lot of noise when you’re with Mr. Higgins from Number Three,” Harry says innocently. He’s had a lot of practice in sounding innocent, too. “More than you make when Uncle Vernon is on top of you.”

Aunt Petunia goes so white that Harry thinks she’s going to faint like Mrs. Verner did last year when her “blood sugar fell.” She reaches out and gets hold of the wall, though. She’s staring at him. “What?” she whispers.

“Sometimes you’re in your bedroom with Uncle Vernon on top of you, and sometimes it’s Mr. Higgins. It was yesterday when Uncle Vernon was at work.” Harry slipped back through the shadows from school yesterday during lunch to see it. It was kind of disgusting and really noisy, but right now it’s paying off.

Aunt Petunia swallows slowly. Then she says, “You didn’t see that.”

“Yes, I did. You were scratching at his back. And then he called you a tigress, Aunt Petunia. Are you a tigress?”

Aunt Petunia actually takes a step backwards, away from him. Harry is a little disappointed. He thought it would take more than that to scare her.

“Y-you’re not going to tell this to Vernon?”

“Why should I? As long as you don’t punish me for getting good marks!” Harry smiles at her. “You’re a tigress, and I’m a good student!”

After a second, Aunt Petunia gives him a shaky smile. Then she ushers him into the kitchen and announces that they’re going to go for ices, and Harry will sit in the back seat and be quiet and have a smaller one than Dudley.

Dudley starts whining at the prospect of Harry getting an ice at all, but Aunt Petunia tells him in a hushed voice that Harry will be upset because it’s a _smaller_ one. And Harry does pretend to pout while he’s eating his strawberry one in the back of the car as they come back from the shops, and Dudley is appeased.

Harry goes to his cupboard happy that night, and planning a way to handle Uncle Vernon.

*

Uncle Vernon yells at Harry a few days later because he didn’t prune all of Aunt Petunia’s roses, and starts to grab his arm and shake him. Harry focuses on his face as best he can and gasps out, “Un-Uncle Vernon, why is there another man’s wallet in your pocket?”

Uncle Vernon is so perplexed he actually stops shouting. He does shake Harry again, but he asks, “What are you talking about, boy?”

“That wallet,” Harry says, and widens his eyes in the direction of Uncle Vernon’s jacket, which is hanging over the back of a dining room chair. “It looks shinier than your wallet!”

Uncle Vernon turns around and reaches into his jacket pocket without letting go of Harry’s arm. Then he shakes out the wallet and stares at it. There are pictures in there of children who are definitely not Dudley, and lots of and lots of fifty-pound notes.

Uncle Vernon wavers. Harry knows he probably wants to keep the fifty-pound notes and just get rid of the wallet somewhere. That won’t do at all. So Harry adds innocently, “It looks like it belongs to Mr. Juniper, right? From Number Seven? He was saying that he lost his wallet the other day!”

“If you tell _anyone_ about this, boy, then I’ll just tell them you took it,” Uncle Vernon threatens him, and empties the money out of the wallet and goes out to throw it in the street.

Harry frowns after him. Well, that didn’t work the way he wanted it to. He probably needs to steal something more than money when he goes through shadows. Something that belongs to someone and has their name on it or something.

Harry grins at the thought. He knows _just_ what he is going to do.

Well, after he goes through the shadows and takes a couple of the fifty-pound notes back. Uncle Vernon didn’t count them, and Harry considers some of them as rightfully his.

*

“What’s this, Aunt Petunia? It looks expensive!”

“What are you—that’s not mine! Put it down!”

Harry looks at her with innocent eyes. He has an emerald necklace in his hand that belongs to a woman who lives several streets away, but was in the middle of Aunt Petunia’s jewelry box. He also has a picture of a naked woman lying on a bed petting a dog with writing on the photo in the corner that says, “For V.” It took him a long time to find something like that. He doesn’t even know completely what it means, but the V could maybe stand for Vernon. And he knows adults think pictures like that are “dirty.”

Aunt Petunia catches on more quickly than Uncle Vernon. She swallows the way she did when Harry confronted her with Mr. Higgins and asks, “What do you want?”

Harry beams at her. “I want Uncle Vernon to stop shaking me. And I want Dudley’s second bedroom.”

Aunt Petunia doesn’t even blink, although Harry thought she would fuss about the second bedroom. She’s looking at the picture. “That doesn’t belong to Vernon,” she says, but her voice is weak.

Harry immediately comes up with a better plan than the one he had, which was to tell people that Uncle Vernon stole the necklace and the photograph. “Well, I don’t know,” he says, acting confused. “I found the picture under a bunch of Uncle Vernon’s socks in his sock drawer.”

Harry is the one who always takes care of the laundry, so Aunt Petunia can’t argue with that. She hesitates and then says, “You put it there.”

“No, really,” Harry says. “He had it shoved all the way back and it got kind of crumpled, see?” The photo is crumpled, although it was like that when Harry found it.

Aunt Petunia mutters, “You’re lying,” but Harry is watching her eyes. He’s got really really good at watching people’s eyes. Aunt Petunia _wants_ to think he’s lying, but part of her believes him. She thinks Uncle Vernon went and rolled around on a bed with that woman and took the picture.

She’s suffering. Well, good. Harry wants to spread it around a bit.

“Please put the necklace back where you found it,” Aunt Petunia whispers. “Please. You can have Dudley’s second bedroom. I’ll talk to Vernon.”

“What about the picture, Aunt Petunia?”

“P-put that back where you found it, too.”

Harry takes the emerald necklace back to the woman a few streets away, and places it under her bed. She can think it fell there and that she really lost it instead of someone stealing it. Harry is thoughtful like that.

He puts the picture in Uncle Vernon’s sock drawer. Shoved way back, where Uncle Vernon barely ever reaches since he always grabs his socks from the top anyway.

Just in case.

*  
  
Harry is ten when he finally terrifies Dudley into leaving him alone forever.

Some of Dudley’s friends won’t join him in beating Harry up anymore. Harry whispered secrets to them that they thought nobody else knew about, secrets he watched from the shadows of pictures or books or doors, secrets they have about touching themselves or stealing things or cheating on exams that they want buried. But Piers Polkiss still joins Dudley, and one dark night they corner Harry far away from a street light. He doesn’t have big enough shadows to slip away.

Even though Dudley and Piers have never acted like they understand how he walks through shadows, they know something is different now. Their grins are bright as they wade towards him and bring up their fists.

Harry cowers, and feels something soft and slippery touch his ankles. He looks down.

A tiny shadow is forming into a dark grey snake. It rears up and gives Dudley and Piers an unimpressed look. Its eyes are bright burning grey and Harry can see through its scales. But its teeth are long when it bares them.

“Go!” Harry whispers, hardly daring to believe his luck.

The snake slithers away at high speed, towards Dudley and Piers. It’s so dark they don’t see it at first. But it curls cool around Piers’s leg, and Piers shakes his leg, then stamps, then kicks, then howls as it bites him.

“Piers!”

“Dud!” Piers yells, and hops as it bites again.

Harry reaches out and wishes as hard as he can that another shadow will come. It does. A shadow as flat as a sting ray is right there, and Harry waves his hand at it and it flies towards Dudley and wraps around him.

Both Dudley and Piers are screaming, high-pitched sounds that make the little dark corner of the street ring and start windows opening and lights turning on. Harry immediately slips away to Number Four Privet Drive and into his cupboard.  
  
Piers never joins Dudley in beating him up after that. Dudley tries one more time, but this time they’re in a lighted area and Harry calls up a shadow-dragon that breathes bright grey fire and gives Dudley a huge shiny pink scar on his arm. After that, Harry talks to Dudley, and they come to a sort of truce.

Dudley doesn’t beat Harry up. Harry doesn’t interfere with him beating other kids up. Neither of them tell Dudley’s parents. They go their own way.

Harry is pleased with the way everything is turning out.

*

When the Hogwarts letter comes, it’s not really a surprise, although Harry is disappointed that it says nothing about learning shadow magic. He thinks he could do even better with a teacher.

Aunt Petunia tells him the truth in a few short sentences—that his mum and dad were murdered by a wizard called Voldie-something, he survived with the scar on his head—and drives him to the Leaky Cauldron. She’s looking at him in so much fear when he gets out of the car that Harry feels compelled to reassure her.

“You don’t have to come get me, Aunt Petunia. I can find my own way home. Or if I can steal enough money here and find food and a place to stay, then I can stay here forever.”

Aunt Petunia smiles all over her face. “Oh, Harry, that would be the best. That would be the very best. I’ll tell Vernon and Dudley. It’s a great day. You should go be a powerful wizard, yes. With your magic. Yes.” She’s babbling, but Harry’s tolerant as he watches her back the car out and zoom away, then turns and enters the Leaky Cauldron.

No one seems to notice him at first. Then Harry catches the attention of the barman, Tom, and as he comes forwards to ask him what he wants, he gasps, “You’re Harry Potter!”

That sets off a huge scramble as people in the pub try to come up and see him and shake his hand and touch his hair. Harry is bewildered. He doesn’t think that he would be famous for shadow magic _yet_ ; he’s only just going to be eleven. But then someone says something about his scar, and he starts to pay more attention.

“Just where You-Know-Who put it,” someone whispers to someone else. They’re both older women, and honestly, except for the robes and pointed hats, they look a lot like Aunt Petunia. Harry listens to them and wonders if You-Know-Who is the same as the Voldie-something wizard his aunt told him about.

So, his scar is the reason he’s famous and the reason people can recognize him. Harry flattens his fringe over it and smiles up at Tom as the man finally lets him into the alley. Tom squeezes his shoulder and mutters something about “the one who saved us all.”

 _They think I’m a savior_? Maybe that makes a little more sense, although Harry still doesn’t know the full story. But if this You-Know-Who was a frightening wizard and he somehow turned him back, then people would go crazy about him. Harry remembers seeing some people on the telly who got other people fussing over them because they dragged someone out of a river or saved them from a fire or something. People like heroes.

 _I’m not really a hero_ , Harry thinks doubtfully as he walks through the alley and tries not to gape at the brooms in the windows, the wands people are carrying, how their robes sway. But then he straightens his back and walks along without really meeting people’s eyes but smiling in a way that would convince them he did.

_I’m good at making people think what I want about me, though._

*

Harry goes to the bank, because if he is going to steal money or something it seems like this would be the place to start. The small creatures in front of the bank surprise him so much that he stops and asks the first one, “Who are you?”

“My name is Granakiz,” says the creature, and gives him a disdainful glance. “Have you never seen a goblin before?”

“No.”

The goblin looks him over again. His face is more neutral this time, at least as far as Harry can read the expression of someone who isn’t human. He nods at Harry and says, “Goblins are the keepers of the wizarding world’s money. See that you don’t be so rude again.”

“I promise,” Harry says, with his favorite smile, and walks into the bank. He sees the warning about stealing from goblins. He shrugs a little. He can’t see anyone speaking to the shadows or moving through them around him. He will still try to take money if he can’t get it here legally somehow, because he has to have money to go to school.

When he gets inside, he sees a queue of wizards, and he gets in it. He supposes that he can learn this way if he can get money from the bank just by asking or not.

The queue seems to last forever, but Harry entertains himself by sending his mind questing through the shadows around him. He doesn’t see a whole lot that’s interesting, except goblins counting gold and silver into chests, and the openings of stone tunnels lit by torches. It seems the bank goes down much further underground than it rises above the street.

Harry isn’t worried. If there’s fire in those underground tunnels, there are also shadows. In fact, it might be easier to move around inside the wizarding world than it is outside. He’s never been a big fan of the kind of Muggle lights that fill a room with such brightness that he can barely move around.

Finally, it’s Harry’s turn to step in front of a goblin, who sneers at him. That’s all right. Harry doesn’t think they like anybody. “Who are you?” the goblin snaps.

“Harry Potter,” Harry says, and pushes back the fringe so the goblin can see his scar. That seems to be the way people recognize him.

The goblin narrows his eyes. “Key?”

“Do I have money here?” Harry asks, blinking. “I didn’t know I did. I don’t have a key.”

He thinks it’s a simple statement—either they do know who he is and they give him some money because it’s his, or they deny who he is and he steals it—but instead, it sets off a furious whispering and bustling in the goblins behind the counter. Harry stands there and waits. Wizards glare at him. Harry doesn’t care. This is fascinating, although sadly the shadows can tell him nothing more because the goblins are all talking in a language he doesn’t know.

Finally the goblin who asked him the question in the first place comes back and glares at him and says, “Come with me.” Then he leads Harry back into the bank and makes him walk several times through an iron door that has no shadows around it at all, but a big chain hanging out of it. Harry wonders if it’s like a metal detector at an airport.

Finally, the goblins seem satisfied that Harry is who he says he is, and they take him on a wild ride into the bank. Harry laughs as the cart hurtles along curving, deep, and best of all, _shadowy_ roadways into the earth. He walks around his vault when they get there and smiles at the heaps of gold and silver and copper.

When he asks about the names of the coins and the exchange rate, the goblin sneers at him and recites the numbers in a bored way. They sound a little bewildering. Well, that’s all right. Harry will make sure that he can work the numbers automatically by the time he goes to Hogwarts.

He takes enough Galleons to satisfy him, and on the way up, asks the goblin what they do to thieves, using the lie that he wants to know his money is safe.

The goblin nods to a lump that’s lying in the darkness off the track. Harry squints, but they’re past it too quickly for him to be sure what it is. “See that?”

“Yes?”

“All that’s left of someone who tried to come down here without a guide,” the goblin says with the same relish Dudley used to use for talking about beating people up.  
  
Harry nods thoughtfully. He will have to make sure that he can move from shadow to shadow without popping up the way he does when one ends. It will work as long as the shadows overlap.

Harry spends the rest of the day in Diagon Alley. He buys books—including books about You-Know-Who, although there aren’t many of those—and robes and a cauldron and scales and a Potions kit and a pointed hat. He thinks about buying a pet, but he isn’t sure which one would be best; anyway, they would probably get left behind when he goes through shadows, and he wants one that can keep up. Then he goes back to the Leaky Cauldron and asks Tom for a room.

“All on your own, Harry?” Tom asks him, with a baffled frown that makes Harry remember when the nicer primary school teachers tried to take an interest in him.

Harry nods shyly. “My family are Muggles. They don’t feel welcome here. But I’ll go home sometimes just to tell them I’m fine, and then I can be in London when the train leaves on the first.”

No explanation more than that is necessary to satisfy Tom; Harry thought it wouldn’t be. Adults see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear. Soon he is in a room at the Leaky Cauldron, having tea, and reading in a book about You-Know-Who that his real name was Voldemort and Harry somehow defeated him when he was one year old.

That doesn’t sound very likely, Harry thinks. Maybe the shadows actually defeated him.  
  
But he has time to worry about it later. He switches to another book that’s more fun, about the wizarding sport called Quidditch, and reads long into the night, in his very own room with his very own money and a low fire that casts shadows everywhere.


	2. Shadows at Hogwarts

 

Harry wanders through the crowd around the Hogwarts Express, carefully dodging through a shadow when one person almost backs into him as they wave their arms and give tearful snuffling kisses to their parents. Harry still wishes for parents, sometimes, but he’s glad he doesn’t have some of these.

The month in Diagon Alley sped past. Harry read a lot and eavesdropped on a lot of people’s conversations, wherever he could find mention of Hogwarts or his name. He still doesn’t think he knows everything, but he knows a lot more than he did when he first got to the wizarding world.

People _do_ expect him to be a hero. They _do_ think he will change the world somehow, just by existing. And they do think that he’s a bright, simple, innocent, polished, wise, naive lad, all at once.

Harry has already concluded that trying to be all those things is impossible. He will be what he can, what he wants, and sometimes what other people expect, but he won’t tie himself in knots over their expectations.

He finds an empty compartment on the train easily, since he’s there before most of them anyway. He thought about putting on his school robes right away, but in the end he went with black casual ones. He slings his trunk into the compartment overhead and sits down with a book on history. It seems, from some of the things he heard from the shadows, that Hogwarts’s History teacher is awful.

No one bothers him until almost time for the train to get moving. Then the door of the compartment opens.

Harry starts to wind the shadows around himself automatically. If he does it right and holds still, he can sit there and be invisible; someone will look right at him and not be able to see him. He used that to escape Dudley and his gang a lot.

But then he hesitates. He’s going to have to show up at Hogwarts in a way he never did at primary school. And he doesn’t have a Dudley running around this time to make the other kids hate him and he hates the other kids.

So he lets the shadows go, and pretends to be reading so intensely that he only looks up when the other kid clears his throat.

Harry glances up with a faint smile on his face. He knows how to look sort-of friendly after his month in Diagon Alley. The boy who’s looking back at him is pale and thin and has a large shock of dark hair that’s tamer than Harry’s. He’s also staring at Harry so intensely that Harry thinks he might have seen him if he was wrapped in shadows after all.

“Is anyone else sitting here?” the boy asks quietly.

Harry shakes his head. The boy sits down on the other side of the compartment for him and also takes out a book, although it looks as if this one’s on Transfiguration.

Harry is about to go back to his history book, and maybe send out some shadows to spy on people, when the boy asks, “What is your name? Mine is Theodore Nott.”

He speaks formally, the way that Harry has mostly heard older wizards speak in the past month. Harry decides he probably has strict parents. He smiles back and nods a little and says, “My name is Harry Potter.”

The boy’s eyes widen. They flick up to his scar, the way everyone is always doing. Harry can smile politely enough by now, and go back to reading. Or he would, but Nott says, “You’re nothing like I expected.”

“What did you expect?” Harry asks. This is the first time he’s been able to ask the question instead of just playing along with what people want to see.

“A parade of well-wishers, your loving family behind you, flying banners in red and gold,” Nott answers immediately. “The last might be metaphorical.”

Harry rolls his eyes a little. He knows red and gold are the colors of Gryffindor House, where he doesn’t think he has much chance of going. It’s concerning to think people know his Hogwarts House before he’s Sorted, though. “What do you know about my family?”

“Not much. Your mother and father are—dead. I know you were raised by some relatives of your father’s—”

“How do you know _that_?”

“Well, I suppose I never received confirmation of it. But my father thinks that’s likely what happened. It’s well-known that James Potter’s mother’s family came from out of the country and that you were supposed to be in a safe place with people who were taking care of you. It seems like a reasonable assumption.”

Nott is speaking slowly now, one eye on Harry. Harry shakes his head a little. It’s not going to be good for him to show too much interest in talking about or defending his relatives. “I was raised by my mother’s family.”

“But your mother was—”

Harry gives Nott a friendly smile. “I’m not much up for my mother being called a ‘Mudblood,’ just so you know.”

Nott pauses again. He seems to be a lot more careful than some people from Harry’s primary school, which Harry has to admit he likes. “I wasn’t going to speak the word.”

“Just think the thought?” Harry raises his eyebrows when he sees a blush creeping over Nott’s cheeks. He doesn’t think he’s ever made someone blush before. “Look, it’s fine if you think the thought. If you treat me badly because of that, I’ll convince you not to. If you just want to think it and avoid me for the rest of your life, I don’t care, but you should leave the compartment now.”

Nott sits quietly for a long moment. Then, oddly, he smiles. “I think you’re going to shake things up, Potter.” And he goes back to reading without saying another word.

After a second, Harry shrugs and does the same. But he can keep his eyes fastened on the page and his shadows spreading across the train to listen to the students’ conversations. He’s not used to spending a lot of time around people his own age. He needs to know what they talk about.

*

By the time they walk into the Great Hall, with the swirls of stars and the shining moon overhead, Harry has a little frown on his face. It seems that people his own age mostly talk about Houses, how much magic they already know, how much better they are than anyone else, and how much they wish other people—like Muggleborns—weren’t here.

This is all so boring to Harry. They’re going to be Sorted into their Houses in just a minute, they’re all going to learn more magic, if you were really better than someone else you would keep it quiet so you could take advantage of them later, and there’s really no difference between one wizard and another based on who their parents were.

He hopes that he can actually fit into Hogwarts, but he’s starting to suspect that he won’t.

After a second, Harry gives a little shrug. If he doesn’t fit in, he doesn’t. At least he knows he can protect himself and keep ahead of people by using his shadows to figure out their secrets.

Nott stays close beside him as the Sorting Hat sings and Harry applauds politely. Harry supposes that makes sense. Professor McGonagall said that they would be Sorted alphabetically, and Nott is pretty close to Potter, even though it might not be right before depending on the other students.

Harry watches as the others get Sorted. There seem to be a lot of cheers for Hufflepuff and Gryffindor students, not so much for Ravenclaw and Slytherin. It makes Harry want to roll his eyes. Do the other students care _that_ much about what colors you wear and where you sleep?

Sure, the Hat also said that it had something to do with the Founders’ love for certain character traits, but Harry thinks that’s so much nonsense. The Founders aren’t here and actually raising these kids; they can’t know that everyone who would get Sorted into their Houses would be perfect for them.

Harry is rapidly deciding the whole House system is stupid, especially when he watches a girl called Granger argue with the Hat before she’s Sorted into Gryffindor and a boy called Longbottom look utterly shocked when he gets Sorted that way. If you can go wherever you want, why does the House matter?

Harry listens to Nott’s name get called and smiles at him a little as he goes up under the Hat. He’s cautious and maybe clever and he can be quiet when he wants; Harry wouldn’t mind sharing a dorm with him.

“SLYTHERIN!” the Hat cries after a second.

Harry shakes his head as he watches Nott walk over to the politely applauding green-and-silver table. Well, that might be the end of that. Harry thinks he’s cunning, but he doesn’t think he’s particularly ambitious. He just wants to make people see what they want to see and leave him alone.

A few other people go in front of him, then Professor McGonagall calls his name. Harry walks over to the Hat and puts it on his head, curious. Will it see into his head like Harry sees through the shadows? So far, he hasn’t read about magic that is exactly like his.

“ _Hello there_ ,” the Hat murmurs to him. “ _Aren’t you curious? You don’t agree with the ideals of any of the Houses, do you?_ ”

It pauses and actually seems to be waiting for an answer, so Harry has to shrug and say, “ _Not really_.” His hard work was never rewarded when he did all the chores for the Dursleys, if he stood up to Dudley and was brave he only got punished, he doesn’t see the point of reading books and doing nothing else, and he doesn’t have any ambitions.

The Hat chuckles at him, making him start slightly. He didn’t think the Hat could laugh, although since it can sing, he probably should have. “ _You don’t think that wanting to know everything about everyone and be out in front of everyone is an ambition_?”

“ _I thought just wanting to survive wouldn’t be an ambition_!”

“ _Being alive in this manner might help you more than you know. Not every ambitious person become a politician or the Minister of Magic_.” The Hat gives another chuckle and then announces, as loudly as it did for Nott, “SLYTHERIN!”

Huh. Well. Harry takes off the Hat and gives it a dubious glance. If it says so. Maybe he’ll fit into his new House better than he knows.

It turns out that he’s wrong about that. Everyone in the Great Hall gapes at him; no one claps. Nott nods to him as Harry takes the seat across the table, but he murmurs, “I couldn’t applaud without looking singular, sorry.”

“It’s all right.” Harry ignores the whispers that have turned into mutters and the stares that have turned into glares. He’s used to this from Privet Drive and people thinking that he’s a delinquent, after all. He does turn around and notice a professor at the head table staring at him particularly hard. “Who’s that?”

“Professor Snape, the Head of Slytherin,” says a blond boy who’s staring at Harry as if he’s all broken out in spots. “You’re in trouble if you don’t appeal to him, _Potter_. He can assign detentions and take points.” He seems to debate for a second, then holds out his hand. “Draco Malfoy.”

Harry politely shakes his hand and doesn’t say anything. He saw Lucius Malfoy’s name on a list of suspected Death Eaters in one of the books. He doesn’t see that Malfoy has anything to be proud of if his father was so weak as to follow another wizard.

The food is good enough to make Harry glad he came to Hogwarts, but the way that most of the other Slytherins, Nott excepted, stare at him and whisper is annoying. So is the way that his Head of House treats him after dinner. He comes up as they’re leaving the Great Hall for the dungeons, pulls Harry aside, and sneers at him. “There will be no _pranks_ played in this House, Mr. Potter,” he says.

For a minute, Harry thinks he’s talking about the pranks Harry pulled on the Dursleys to get them to leave him alone. Then he sees the way that Snape stands there with his arms folded and a glare all over his face, and nods. This is another adult who hates Harry for existing, the way Vernon did. Well, that’s fine. Harry knows how to cope with them.

Snape seems confounded by his silence. He leans forwards. “The minute any of your Housemates complain about you, Potter, _any_ of them, I will assign you detention myself,” he threatens.

“Yes, sir,” Harry says, in his best neutral voice. That seems to satisfy Snape, who pulls back with an ugly smile.

“Good luck finding the common room without a prefect to lead you, Potter,” he mutters, and walks off.

Harry waits until he’s gone to snort. He heard enough from the students on the train and at dinner to know the Slytherin common room is in the dungeons. So he goes down the stairs that he saw the other Slytherins heading towards and reaches out confidently towards the first set of shadows lying under a flickering torch. He was right, the wizarding world and its use of fire is a _lot_ more useful for moving around in.

From there, Harry spreads out his attention in many different directions, rather like peering through many different windows and moving on, until he finds the Slytherin students traveling through a particularly large corridor with shadows at the beginning and end of it. Harry nods. He didn’t _think_ they would have reached the common room yet, when his conversation with Snape was only a few sentences long. He rears backs and leaps through the shadows.

He appears behind the last stragglers and hurries to catch up, just as the fifth-year prefect tells them the password is _Purus_. Nott gives him a baffled glance as they walk into the common room.

“I thought Professor Snape was talking to you?” he murmurs.

“Only to give me a warning against playing pranks and telling me he’ll give me detention if I try,” Harry says, with a shrug. “Does he hate pranks or something?”

“He hates it when the Gryffindors try to sneak into our House or mess up our potions or spells,” Nott says after a pause. “I can’t think of anything else.”

“I suppose he just hates me then.”

Nott hesitates, but Malfoy, on his way past, overhears Harry and guffaws loudly. “Maybe you should think harder about the things you did when you were one year old,” he says, and struts up the stairs.

Harry rolls his eyes a little. If Snape was a Death Eater too, then Harry has interest in staying out of his way, but less than none in apologizing or doing whatever else Malfoy was actually saying.

“Ignore Draco,” Nott says, into a silence that feels almost embarrassed on his part. “He’s a prat.”

“Oh, I know,” Harry says, and smiles at Nott, and goes up to bed. The Slytherin boys’ bedroom he’s assigned to is dark green with pillars on all the beds, and some carved snakes on the headboards, and so much faint green light from the window that Harry can almost see well enough to read by it. And shadows. _So_ many shadows, from high furniture and trunks and overhanging features of the ceiling and the walls.

Harry goes to bed well-pleased.

*

The first few weeks or so are a blur. Harry does his best to make sure he’s on time to classes and gives an honest effort at all his spells and potions and other schoolwork. When he realizes Snape is never going to mark him fairly no matter what he does, though—Harry brews a good potion the first day without any help like the other Slytherins get and is told he must have cheated—he gives up on that class. Potions might be useful if he can study them outside of class, and the shadows have already showed him little passages in the walls and shut-up rooms where he can practice.

Other people act strangely. They pretend to lose their way in the corridors just so they can talk to Harry. They giggle and stare at him from under their eyelashes. The strangest are probably the first-year Gryffindors, though, who corner Harry as a group on the second Friday when he’s on his way back from Potions.

“We want to know why you aren’t in Gryffindor,” says a sandy-haired one who looks at Harry intensely.

“Because the Hat put me in Slytherin.”

That makes the dark-skinned boy laugh, and he puts his hand out so Harry can shake it. “Dean Thomas,” he says. “The rest are being weird, but I _told_ them it’s because the Hat put you in Slytherin. I _told_ them that’s what you’d say.”

Harry shakes his hand and grins at him. “Harry Potter,” he says. “Now you’ve really met me, not the illusion most people carry around in their heads.”

“But you were supposed to be in Gryffindor,” says the red-haired one. Harry is fairly sure his last name is Weasley, after seeing other Gryffindor gingers, but he doesn’t know his first one. “My parents said your parents were.”

“So what? I can’t remember them, it’s not like they could influence me.”

“But—Houses run in families.”

Harry shrugs. “My other family is Muggles. They can’t have Houses running in their blood.” He smiles at the Weasley until he looks uncomfortable and like he wants to go away.

The sandy-haired one interrupts again, just as Nott comes around the corner and stops near Harry for some reason. “You’re _sure_ that you don’t want to be in Gryffindor? Then you could have friends like us.”

“He has friends like me instead,” Nott says in a cool voice, and steps forwards so the other Gryffindors can see him. “Why would he want ones like you?”

That makes Weasley and the sandy-haired one bristle, and the girls, who haven’t said anything in the argument so far, look a little shocked. Thomas shrugs and says, “And he has me, if he’d like to talk to me sometime.” He gives Harry a calm nod and walks away towards lunch. The other first-year Gryffindors don’t seem inclined to move. Harry walks past them with Nott at his side.

“Let me know if they’re bothering you again,” Nott says, when they’re almost to the Great Hall. “They act like you’re their icon who got painted in the wrong colors or something.”

“Okay,” Harry says slowly. “Thanks, Nott. But—honestly, why?”

Nott pauses, and Harry knows he’s thinking something over. He turns around and studies the other boy. He thought Nott just happened to walk with him to some classes—after all, the first-year Slytherins usually travel as a group—and sit next to him at lunch because the number of seats is limited and talk to him because he knows Harry likes to read some books and has knowledge of things Nott finds interesting. But maybe it really is an attempt to make friends.

It’s not like Harry would recognize it. He’s never had one before.

Nott says, “Well, you’re—smart. And what I aspire to be. Someone who doesn’t care about anything that anyone says,” he adds, when Harry gives him a Look, because Nott doesn’t know about the shadows and Harry can’t imagine him wanting to be the Boy-Who-Lived. “You just go on your way. My father tried to raise me like that, but it never worked. Seeing you, though...I’d like to be like you.”

“So. A friend?”

Nott nods. He’s staring at Harry hard and almost holding his breath. Harry smiles at him and extends his hand. “Then I can be your friend as much as I am anyone’s. It’s hard to learn.”

“I know,” Nott says in a soft voice that makes Harry suspect he actually does. And they walk the rest of the way to lunch in pleased silence.

*

One of the first things Harry learns to love about Hogwarts is the way that shadows connect up so often with other shadows. He can pass through what seems to be solid stone and find hollows or corridors or staircases on the other side that he can also watch or run up depending on the way the shadows in this new space fall.

One day, he goes through what seems to be a solid gargoyle and finds himself in a staircase on the other side. It looks like it would rotate underneath him if he was walking up it. Fascinated, Harry flickers his attention from shadow to shadow up the staircase, and pauses at the door at the top to see if there are shadows underneath it that he can use.

There are! There seems to be a bright fireplace in there. Harry leapfrogs under the door and lies in the shadow of a desk. He can see a perch with a brilliant bird on it, who is sleeping with his head under his wing. From the books he’s read, Harry thinks it might be a phoenix. There are shining silver instruments everywhere, and books that look interesting. Harry might have manifested in the office to study them except there are people there.

Headmaster Dumbledore is sitting behind his desk with his hands folded, scowling at Professor Snape. “Now, Severus, I understand that you don’t like having Harry in your House, but aren’t these concerns rather exaggerated?”

“No, they are _not_ , Headmaster! The boy thinks himself above everybody! He makes friends with no one, he disdains all his Housemates, he spends the majority of his time by himself, and he gives me this _knowing_ smile whenever he sees me!”

Harry would roll his eyes if he could. He gives the knowing smile at Professor Snape because he knows a secret of his. Harry won’t use that secret until Snape gets more annoying than he is, but the shadows found something _interesting_ in the corner of his bedroom. Harry’s holding it in reserve.

“I thought he was spending a lot of time with Aethelred Nott’s son?”

“He’s using the boy for Mr. Nott’s studious skill, I’m certain. There’s no way that he can be attaining the high results that Minerva and Filius and the others are reporting by himself.”

“Minerva and Filius are most pleased with his progress.”

“He still has his classes with Slytherin and can copy off Mr. Nott.”

“If one of them _catches_ him cheating, Severus, I’m sure they’ll report it,” the Headmaster says, in a voice that tells Harry that line of conversation is over. “And I will be happy to listen to them and discipline Harry then. You told me you had other concerns than the fact that you don’t think Harry belongs in Slytherin. What are they?”

Snape hesitates for a long moment. Then he says, “You know that I knew Petunia Evans growing up.”

This is news to Harry, but also something he’s suspected. Headmaster Dumbledore nods. “Yes, what of it?”

“I’ve been to that house in Surrey where the boy resides—or resided. I can find no trace of him there, Headmaster. No trace of his toys, his amusements, his friends. I looked into his aunt’s mind and found stark fear of him. He is apparently an accomplished thief, but she had no idea how. And his cousin has a burn scar from him, but he couldn’t clearly tell his parents how. I fear the boy may be drifting into Dark Arts, Headmaster.”

Harry wants to sigh. It seems that while he can read the shadows, some people can read minds. Harry might have to use Snape’s secret against him sooner than he thought, or find another one and have that in reserve, too.

But at least Snape didn’t learn anything about the shadows from the Dursleys. None of them ever understood how Harry went from place to place, and the dragon that burned Dudley would have seemed like a creature Harry summoned to him, not something that was made of shadow. Why would anyone suspect that?

The shadow magic hasn’t been described in any of the books Harry has found, either. No one talks about it. Maybe he is unique in the wizarding world for more than his scar and his status as the supposed Boy-Who-Lived.

“I see.” Dumbledore sounds disturbed. “Then I ask you to keep an eye on him, Severus, and try to find out how he’s accomplishing feats like his perfect marks in Minerva’s and Filius’s class. Say nothing directly to him about the Dursleys or your idea that he doesn’t belong in Slytherin. Do watch his interactions with Aethelred’s son more closely. Mr. Nott must be getting something out of them, or he would have chased Harry off by now.”

Snape promises. Harry retreats from the Headmaster’s office and goes thoughtfully back down the stairs and into the common room, where he forms in a particularly shadowy corner.

“How do you do that?”

Harry turns around and studies Theodore for a second. He’s insisted that Harry call him Theodore since the day they became friends, although sometimes he calls Harry by his last name. “My secret,” Harry says.

Theodore watches him with a shadow falling across his face. He’s one of the few people Harry’s met who looks _into_ shadows, rather than past them, and it makes him a better friend than Harry thought he’d find. “Would you try to take the memory from me?”

“No. I’d find out something you want to keep secret and hold it over your head until you were silent.”

Theodore actually smiles. “If I don’t have any secrets like that?”

“You must have embarrassing ones, if not dark ones,” Harry says. He’s utterly certain. “I don’t want to do that because you’re my friend, but this is more important.”

Theodore nods slowly. “I think you’ve had to fight to protect yourself and your secrets, and no one ever helped you,” he whispers.

Harry thinks about it, then shrugs. “That’s true,” he agrees. He doesn’t count things like Dudley agreeing to stop beating him up or Aunt Petunia protecting him from Vernon as real. He had to force them to do it.

“I would be honored to help you protect your secrets, Potter.”

“Why? And would you _please_ call me Harry? It’s weird when Dean does it and not you.”

“Very well—Harry.” Theodore give a big enormous pause before the name, like it’s significant or something. “And you can say it’s because you’re my friend. You can say it’s because you’re going to be very powerful and I’d like you to help lift me. You can say it’s because I admire the way you interact with the world, as I’ve said before. All of those and more.”

Harry thinks about that in turn. Theodore honestly does seem as if he’s impressed by more than Harry’s title and scar. He and Harry discuss books sometimes, laugh sometimes, and spend more time together than anyone else. If it comes down to this, Harry feels like he can believe him.

“Okay,” Harry finally says. “As long as you realize what the price is for betraying me.”

“As you say, my lord.”

“Call me _Harry_.”

“As you say, my lord.”

Theodore gets away with it, but only because he’s Harry’s friend. His first one, his real one, the first he’s ever had.

It gives him a lot of leeway in the coming years.


	3. Gifts of Shadow

 

Harry sighs and closes another book. He’s looked in all the books in the library that seem plausible for information about shadow magic. He can’t find anything. As far as Hogwarts is concerned, he doesn’t exist.

He’s been into the Restricted Section, but honestly, they don’t have very interesting books in there. Just ones about painful magic, torture curses, Dark Arts, and the like. Harry isn’t that interested in _Dark_ magic. The absence of light makes it impossible for his shadows to go anywhere.

Like that third-floor corridor that Dumbledore announced was off-limits. Harry thought it would be interesting to explore, but there’s only one torch near the entrance, and nothing else. He got a few meters into the corridor and saw a huge oaken door banded with iron. But it must be absolutely dark under or behind that door, because he can’t reach any further.

Harry yawns and leaves the library. He has a fair way to go back to the dungeons, and he’s tired enough that he doesn’t want to just pop through the shadows. His aim is always bad when he’s tired, and he’s come too near to being discovered a few times.

But his tiredness fades away when he hears laughter, the same kind he used to hear from Dudley whenever he and his friends had cornered someone. Harry wraps softness around himself and crosses to the opposite side of the corridor he’s in.

Malfoy and those two huge lumps that are always following him around are taunting a first-year Gryffindor. After some squinting, Harry recognizes him as Neville Longbottom. He honestly only knows that because Snape berates him so much that it catches Harry’s attention even when he tries to dream through class.

“Why don’t you go home, Longbottom?” Malfoy asks. He swaggers a little even though he stands in place. Harry would be more impressed if he hadn’t seen Dudley do the same thing more than once. “Everyone knows you’re a Squib. You don’t _belong_ here. What do you even do besides blow up Professor Snape’s cauldrons?”

The lumps laugh on cue. Longbottom shivers. “I—I’m good at Herbology,” he says, in a voice so soft Harry wouldn’t hear it if he wasn’t this close.

“That’s not enough, Longbottom!” Malfoy shoves him, and Longbottom knocks his head against a wall. “What do you think you’re _doing_ here? Imitating _real_ wizards and annoying them?”

Harry wouldn’t normally intervene, but everything about this scene could come straight from his past. Malfoy as Dudley, the laughing friends, the way that the victim tries to actually answer the question and only makes things worse when he does. Harry learned better at a young age, but none of the boys here ever did.

It doesn’t take Harry long to decide what to do. Stepping into sight will only make things worse. He forms the shadow along the left side of the wall and the one high on the right side of the corridor into wolves instead, and has them loom silently over Malfoy and his gang.

The lump on the right—Harry thinks it’s called Crabbe—is the one who sees them first. He pokes Malfoy in the side and stutters out, “W-w-were—”

“Where what, Crabbe? Is it a prefect?” Malfoy turns around, and so he’s the one who notices the wolves next. Longbottom’s mouth is perfectly open and perfectly round, though, so he might have seen them earlier than Harry thought.

Malfoy laughs nervously a second later. “Those aren’t werewolves, Crabbe,” he says, and makes his voice echo loudly down the corridor. “They’re just somebody playing shadow puppet tricks.” He takes a step towards the wolf lying crouched along the floor, and raises his voice. “Come on! Show yourself! You’ll get in trouble picking on the heir to the House of Malfoy!”

Harry forms a part of the tail of the wolf on the wall into an arrow and points down the corridor. Longbottom runs away at full speed.

Which is good, since Harry thinks the little boy is too timid to see what happens next.

Harry makes the wolves stand and flow towards Malfoy and his lumps. Malfoy takes one step back, then folds his arms. “They’re _shadows_ , they can’t hurt you—”

The wolf that’s formed from the wall leaps down and grabs Malfoy. Malfoy screams as the teeth close on his arm. Harry grins. He’s not going to have the wolf hurt Malfoy, much. Just enough pain to make up for slamming Longbottom’s head into the wall.

So the teeth crunch down, and Malfoy screams again, and Harry pulls back into the shadows and wraps himself up and leaps to the Slytherin common room after all. It won’t be careful and cautious to be outside when Snape comes looking for him.

This time, he slips in through the door with the password like anyone else. Even so, he can see Theodore’s eyes on him, bright and knowing.

When Malfoy limps in with a torn robe and babbling about wolves that came to life and try to eat people, Theodore looks at Harry. Harry is innocently occupied with his History book.

It doesn’t keep Snape from assigning him detention because he thinks Harry must be behind every time his favorite gets in trouble, but at least Harry knows Malfoy can’t _prove_ it. And neither can Snape. And neither can Theodore, even though he stares at Harry the next morning when Longbottom is telling his story in whispers, about how the shadows came to life and saved him.

Harry continues to ignore Theodore’s sly glances. And the way he calls Harry “my lord.” It’s exasperating, but Theodore likes to be that way. It doesn’t _mean_ anything.

*

“Mr. P-Potter, st-stay b-behind after cl-class.”

Harry turns around and waits semi-patiently for Professor Quirrell to finish whatever he wants. The man has been the most useless professor Harry has. Snape seems to know how to teach other people, even though Harry’s given up on learning from the idiot. Quirrell just babbles about vampires and smells of garlic and sends people into giggling with his stutter.

Theodore and Dean, surprisingly, are standing near the door still, although they act like they’re ignoring each other to focus on Harry. Harry shakes his head at them before the professor shuts the door.

“Now, Mr. Potter,” Quirrell says, and interestingly loses the stutter the instant they’re alone, “I notice that you’re barely trying with the spells in class.”

Harry nods. “Yes, sir,” he adds, when Quirrell glares at him like he wants a verbal answer.

“Why, Mr. Potter?”

“Most of them don’t seem very interesting,” Harry tells him. He would tell any other professor the same thing, and be honest, but none of them are intent on asking him. He writes good essays, and he can do the simple spells in Transfiguration and Charms, and working on basic Herbology is a breeze after years tending Aunt Petunia’s garden. Everyone except Snape has seemed pleased with him up until this point.

Quirrell blinks. Then he asks, “Why not, Mr. Potter? Some of those spells could protect you from vampires and other Dark creatures.”

“I looked them up in the library, sir,” Harry says. And he did, when he was sneaking into the Restricted Section and looking for books on shadow magic. “There are better shield charms than the ones you’re teaching us. I’ve been learning those.”

“Have you indeed, Mr. Potter. _Frangere_!”

“ _Protego_!”

The Shield Charm doesn’t work as well as the books describe. Harry is still learning it, after all. But a spark in the air deflects Quirrell’s Bone-Breaking Curse and lets Harry duck out of the way. Quirrell is watching him with a faint smile when he stands again.

“Just because you are more powerful than other first-years is no reason not to pay attention in class, Mr. Potter. I expect more of you after Christmas.” Quirrell puts his wand away like nothing happened. “Perhaps you will, after all, provide more of a challenge than I was expecting.”

That doesn’t make a lot of sense. Harry keeps one eye on Professor Quirrell as he opens the door of the classroom and goes out to rejoin Theodore and Dean. They immediately close in around him. Quirrell is giving him a nasty smile when Harry glances back.

“What did he want?” Dean asks.

“He said that he noticed I wasn’t make a whole lot of effort in class.”

“Well, he’s right,” says Theodore.

Harry shrugs. “Most of the spells we’re learning are boring. That’s what I told him. I looked up stronger shield spells in the library. So he tried out a spell on me, and I countered it. And then he told me that he wants to see better effort from me after Christmas.” It still feels odd to tell the truth to people so often, but Theodore and Dean mostly tell it to him, so Harry’s resigned.

“What spell did he send at you?”

“The Bone-Breaking Curse.”

Dean splutters. Theodore stops and looks at Harry. “And you deflected it?”

Harry shakes his head. “The shield didn’t form all the way. Enough to turn it aside, not enough to work the way the books said it should.”

“That still makes you really powerful, mate,” Dean mutters. “Think you could teach me to do that?”

“Maybe,” Harry says. He frowns a little. “If it didn’t work the way it should for me, then I don’t know if it would work for you.”

“Even learning a bit of a shield would make a big difference,” Dean insists. “I don’t think I could deflect vampires the way Quirrell is always going on about. And the Body-Bind is only useful if you can cast it, which I can’t.”

Harry thinks about it, then says, “Okay.” It’s true that he has more free time than the other students who always have something going on, whether that’s gossiping with friends or playing Gobstones or Quidditch or learning to see over their noses, the way Malfoy hasn’t mastered yet. “You want to meet after dinner?”

Dean nods, and then speeds up to go to lunch because he complains that Harry and Theodore are “walking too slow.” Theodore continues to walk slowly, but he does say, “You’d be willing to teach Thomas a spell like that? Mighty brave of you.”

“Why? I already know it myself, and I’ll keep working on it. It’s not like he can use it to hurt me, even. It’s purely a defensive spell.”

“You know what some of our Housemates would say about you teaching a Gryffindor. Even some of Thomas’s mates.”

“It’s a good thing that’s not their business, isn’t it?”

Theodore laughs, long and low. Then he glances sideways at Harry and asks, “Do you want to come home with me for Christmas? Father’s agreeable, as long as we don’t make too much noise. He invents experimental potions, so he needs peace and quiet.”

Harry blinks, utterly surprised. He’s never had someone invite him anywhere before. After thinking about it, he shakes his head. “No, thanks, Theodore. I’d like to meet your dad sometime, but I want to take this holiday to really work on my potions. Snape is useless at teaching _me_.”

“Father could help you with those.”

“I thought you just said he needed peace and quiet.”

“Teaching is different. The only student he’s had for ten years is me, and he’s already taught me everything I want to learn. Professor Snape is actually better for me because he can tell me the rules for regular potions. Father is only interested in experimental ones.”

Harry thinks some more about that. Well, it’s true that he won’t get anything out of Snape at all, and experimental potions sound more fun working with somebody than laboring endlessly over the ones that are in their book after a class when he can’t do them. “All right. Thanks, Theodore.”

Theodore’s eyes flash with the kind of triumph that Dudley used to have when he persuaded someone to come beat up Harry, but Harry ignores that. Theodore can’t hurt him and hasn’t tried. “Thank _you_ , my lord.”

“Someday, you’re going to say that in front of the wrong person and they’re going to misunderstand and it’ll get you in trouble.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Harry shakes his head. Yes, Theodore will. One thing Harry’s already noticed about him is how far he’ll go for a joke, like calling Harry “my lord” or telling other people that Harry is his only friend, when he talks to other people in their House and acts perfectly calm and friendly around Dean. Well, the jokes don’t bother Harry, much, so he can just keep making them.

*

Professor Snape pulls Harry aside the day before the Christmas holidays are set to begin. “I understand that you did not sign up to stay here, _Potter_. But I know you aren’t going home to your family.”

“No, I’m not,” Harry agrees. “I’m going to visit with Theodore and his father.”

“You mean that you intend to continue your shameful program of _cheating_ off of Mr. Nott.” Snape draws himself up with a sneer that looks like all the others have been practice for it. “I will not stand for it, Mr. Potter. I have been to visit your family. I _know_ your secrets. You are a liar and a thief. And you will stay here at Hogwarts where I can keep an eye on you.”

Harry smiles a little. Well, here’s a chance to test his power over Snape. “And I know your secret, Professor. The one that you have in the corner of your bedroom? If you don’t let me go visit Theodore, then I’ll tell the school.”

It’s hilarious to watch how fast Snape loses color; it’s like watching him bleed. He leans on the wall for a second, and then straightens up and shakes his head. “You cannot possibly—”

“You have a picture of my mother,” Harry says calmly. It took him a bit to figure out it was his mum, since he’s never seen a picture of her, but the eyes were a huge clue. And it turns out that Snape has her name written all over these love letters that form part of the shrine, too. “You have candles lit to her. You have dozens of pleas for forgiveness written to her.” He waits, then adds, “How would students react to know that the big bad Professor Snape is still in mourning over a woman who died ten years ago? That he’s like a schoolboy with a crush?”

Professor Snape breathes and stares at him. Harry smiles back. Finally, Snape flings his door open and snarls, “Get out. I will not interfere with your going to Mr. Nott’s house.”

Harry nods at him and departs. It’s good that he didn’t need to reveal this particular secret so soon. That gives him power in the future without having to find out another secret of Snape’s.

And now he gets to go with Theodore, and spend what he hopes is a perfectly nice holiday.

*

It does turn out to be a perfectly nice holiday, somewhat to Harry’s surprise. Aethelred, as he tells Harry to call him, is an older man with a white mustache and eyes that seem to look past Harry into the distance. But he is _great_ at experimental potions, and he has to explain enough simple stuff when Harry asks him questions that Harry knows he’ll go back to Hogwarts with a better idea of how to crush, dice, and cut up ingredients, and when to use his wand to start the flame, and which potions can’t have magic used anywhere near them.

It’s nice to be in a huge house that no one minds him being in, either. Harry and Theodore explorer the manor’s mostly empty rooms, do some potions in the lab under Aethelred’s watchful eye, fly brooms above the withered Quidditch pitch, do holiday homework, and relax in front of a huge fire with hot chocolate that has marshmallows in it. Harry never got to have it before. He sees why Dudley likes it.

And Theodore talks.

He tells Harry that his mum is dead, which is something Harry knew already but didn’t pay much attention to. He tells him about learning potions from a young age, learning to read on his own because his father didn’t think he was interesting until he did, getting his first practice wand at the age of seven, ordering house-elves around, and going to Diagon Alley whenever he wanted.

Harry listens, and listens, and he understands. Theodore is telling him secrets without Harry having to even use the shadows to find out anything. He’s starved for someone to listen to him.

They’re friends, so Harry can. It’s kind of nice.

Theodore’s dad is a good Potions teacher, but Theodore is right that he isn’t much of anything else. Harry thinks it possible that Theodore was abused, too, just not as much as Harry was. Being ignored sounds like heaven to Harry, but not when it’s your magical parent instead of your Muggle aunt and uncle doing it.

So Harry listens, and pries into a secret of Aethelred’s in case he has to use it someday, and enjoys his holiday for the first time ever. When Theodore gets him a Christmas gift of a book on Dark Lords that Harry couldn’t find in the Restricted Section or Diagon Alley, Harry laughs. “You really are committed to this joke,” he says, flipping through it. “You realize there’s nothing about Voldemort in here?”

“I didn’t get it because I think that you’ll have to fight Voldemort someday.”

“Right, right, I should model myself on the Dark Lords in here and take over the world.”

Theodore lowers his eyes demurely. “There could,” he says, “be worse ambitions.”

Harry rolls his eyes and practically throws his own gift at Theodore. “Open that and go play with it for a while.”

Theodore seems stunned when he opens it to find the warded wand holster that Harry saw him eyeing on one of their trips to Diagon Alley. “Harry, how did you—you didn’t even—how did you get this?”

“I went into the shop and bought it.” Harry is discovering that he has his own sense of humor that involves telling the truth, the way he did when the Gryffindors asked him why he was in Slytherin.

Theodore shoots him a dirty glance that doesn’t last long; he can’t keep his eyes off the holster. “Pure white dragonhide,” he says reverently. “You know this came from an Antipodean Opaleye?”

“I know. There’s a little pamphlet the shop gave me with the holster. I think it’s in the wrapping somewhere.”

Theodore doesn’t look for it. “And the wards will prevent anyone from Summoning or damaging my wand,” he says, and looks straight at Harry. The look in his eye is different this time from most times in the past when he joked with Harry. “ _Thank you_ , my lord.”

Harry shrugs. But he’s smiling as he does it. He discovers that he likes making friends happy with the gifts he can give. He hopes Dean is happy with the book on Quidditch Harry sent him, even though it was cheaper than the holster. “You’re welcome.”

*

The rest of the school year is honestly pretty quiet. Harry heard rumors of a troll in the school at one point last term, but it turned out to be the imagination of a couple of drunken seventh-years. Malfoy doesn’t bully Longbottom anymore, and spends his time staring nervously into shadows. Harry makes a shadow-snake follow him around at one point until he cracks and goes screaming for Professor Snape. It’s worth the (totally justified, not that he can know it) detention Professor Snape gives him. He teaches Dean and Theodore the Shield Charm and gets better at it himself. Defense Against the Dark Arts is a _bit_ more interesting with Professor Quirrell casting rougher spells at him all the time.

And one day, Harry wanders into the Headmaster’s office and finds no one there, not even the phoenix, and plenty of shadows.

Harry promptly manifests and looks around. He can’t _see_ any alarm wards on the bookshelves, and given the amount of shadows falling over them, he would have dared it even if he could. He goes over and scans them for a few seconds, trying to pick out either the fattest or the most interesting book by title.

There’s one! _Secrets of the Darkest Art_. The title does seem to be about darkness and not shadows, but Harry knows this is one he didn’t see in the Restricted Section. He picks up the book and shakes it back and forth. No alarms go off and no spiders fall out of the pages. Harry disappears back into the shadows with it, well-satisfied.

He makes sure to only read the book when he’s alone in either the least well-lit corner of the library or in his bed in the Slytherin dorms with his curtains shut tight. Parts of it aren’t that interesting, just a lot of muttering about how powerful darkness is and how you can get the most power out of eating your enemies’ hearts and things like that. Harry is not impressed. Eating hearts looks messy and gross.

But there’s a part that’s really interesting, when it’s discussing the side-effects from something called a Horcrux that involves splitting your soul and sticking it in objects. The murder to split your soul also look messy and disgusting, but Harry is fascinated by the list of side-effects. They include changes to the face, the reddening of the eyes, the skin shifting so it looks like the scales of a snake or the skin of a frog, and—

 _Power over shadows_.

It’s just one line, and it doesn’t describe it further than that. It also says that not everyone who creates a Horcrux has this, any more than all of them have red eyes. It’s just a list of _possible_ side-effects and goes on to talk in more detail about the Horcrux creation process that Harry skips over.

Harry lies in bed thinking that night, and nodding as the ideas come into his head. Yes, he knows that Voldemort has red eyes, and he thinks he remembers that from his nightmare as well as reading the descriptions of him. So Voldemort probably made a Horcrux, and then when he went after Harry and his parents that night—

What happened?

That’s the point that Harry doesn’t understand. If Voldemort was going to make a Horcrux, another one, to have power over shadows, or he already did, then how did Harry wind up with it?

Harry doesn’t know, and he isn’t sure that he can find out. But he knows that the power over shadows is _his_ , and he’s not going to give anything up and he’s not going to go without it. He does wonder if maybe one of Voldemort’s Horcruxes ended up in him. The scar would be the obvious place.

Well, Voldemort can’t have it back, assuming he still exists (which the Horcruxes book suggests he does). The power is Harry’s and he’s keeping it.

*

As the year goes on, Harry does notice Dumbledore watching him keenly, but he doesn’t think much of it. After all, Dumbledore had the Horcrux book in his office and he might know about Horcruxes. And if Dumbledore thinks that Harry should be in Gryffindor or that he’s destined to defeat Voldemort the way some people do, then he would probably be pretty puzzled by how Harry’s behaving.

But it’s not until the end of the year, after Professor Quirrell abruptly disappears and there’s really no answer to all the students’ confused questions, Dumbledore does call Harry up to his office.

Harry pretends to be confused by where the gargoyle is and what the password is, until Professor McGonagall comes by and tells him. Then he walks up the moving staircase and knocks on the office door for the first time.

“Come in, my boy, come in.”

Harry steps into the office and nods at the phoenix on his perch. Then he glances around at things that he only saw once in person, without the film of grey over his eyes that the shadows always give, and he sits down in the chair in front of Dumbledore’s desk. “You wanted to talk to me, sir?”

“Yes, Harry. I understand that you didn’t investigate the third-floor corridor?”

Harry blinks. Of all the things he thought Dumbledore might say, that wasn’t one of them. He expected to be accused of stealing the Horcrux book. “Sir? I thought we weren’t allowed to go in that corridor?”

“Students weren’t supposed to,” Dumbledore says, nodding. “But I was guarding a rare treasure there, and someone has stolen it. I simply wondered if you had investigated the corridor, since I know that you know many other secrets about the school.”

“No,” Harry says, shaking his head. “It never seemed that interesting.” And it was too dark, not something Dumbledore needs to know about.

“Ah, a pity. I hoped you could let me know where the Philosopher’s Stone disappeared to.”

Harry blinks. He thinks he’s read something about the Philosopher’s Stone in the Horcrux book, or maybe in the Restricted Section. “Isn’t that a famous stone that can help you turn lead into gold, sir? Or something else into gold?”

“And brew the Elixir of Life that could let you live forever, yes.” Dumbledore leans forwards. “I suspect the person who stole it was specifically looking for the Elixir of Life.”

“Why, sir? The ability to turn lead into gold sounds more interesting to me.”

Dumbledore smiles sadly. “Do you think you care too much about the riches of life, Harry?”

“No,” Harry says, after considering that for as much time as it deserves, which is about two seconds.

“I just want to know any information you may have about who stole the Stone, Harry.”

“If you suspect they stole it for the Elixir of Life, don’t you already suspect who stole it, sir?”

“I have suspicions, Harry, but I do not know for sure.”

“I don’t know, sir.”

And since that’s true, it’s going to be true no matter how long Dumbledore stares at him. He finally sighs as if disappointed and asks, “So, are you looking forward to the summer holidays, Harry?”

“Yes, sir. I’m looking forward to doing lots of reading that isn’t for my classes and staying with my friend Theodore.”

“Theodore? Ah, yes, Mr. Nott. Well, I’m afraid that I must ask you to go back to your family, Harry. They must miss you terribly.”

“Why are you asking me, sir?”

“What? Well, of course, I hate to order any of my students around—”

“No, I mean, why you specifically, sir? You’re not my guardian or my Head of House, so it just seems strange.”

Dumbledore’s eyes have narrowed slightly. Harry thinks he’s on to something, although he doesn’t know what it is. He waits hopefully, but gets nothing more interesting than Dumbledore saying, “It is just for the summer, Harry.”

“They won’t want me back,” Harry says positively. “We don’t get along. But I do get along with Theodore and his dad. So I’m going to his house.”

“You will go back to the Dursleys, Harry.”

Harry doesn’t see the point of arguing, so he shrugs a little. Then he goes back to the Slytherin common room after Dumbledore questions him one more time about the Philosopher’s Stone, and tells Theodore what is going to happen.

*

And what he says is going to happen is what does. He and Theodore ride the train until they’re almost back to King’s Cross Station, and then Harry pretends to go to the luggage compartment and disappears into the shadows instead. He told Theodore he would remain unseen. Theodore didn’t question him as to how.

Harry only comes out when he hears all the other students leave. He follows Theodore to where his father is waiting. Aethelred nods at them a little and takes their hands, whisking them through side-along Apparition. Harry doesn’t like it, not compared to his shadows, but he doesn’t feel like he wants to throw up, either, which is what Theodore looks like.

“Come on,” Theodore says, the minute his father has disappeared into his lab. “I have new books that you haven’t read, and there are games we never got to play, and I might invite Pucey over later...”

Harry follows him up to the room that he stayed in over Christmas, feeling content. From the way Theodore looks over his shoulder, he feels the same way.

Dumbledore sends a few owls over the summer. They are incredibly easy to ignore.


	4. Shadows In His Eyes

 

The summer is wonderful. Harry has never lived in a house so large, or had the ability to wake up when he wants and do what he wants exactly then. Even staying in the Leaky Cauldron last summer, he had to wake up at certain times so he could get breakfast and lunch. Here, the Nott house-elves will serve him whenever he wants.

He soon explores all the shadowy corners in the manor, and finds a secret of Aethelred’s that makes him smile to hold onto. Then he can concentrate on spreading out into the shadows of the forest and finding the hiding places of the unicorns that live there. Wild beasts scatter before him when he pops up. He finds a patch of Potions ingredients that Aethelred has warned him to let alone and watches from shadows for a long time before he sees the fine webs of guardian spiders spun among the herbs.

Spending time with Theodore gets easier and easier. He’s happy to talk as much as Harry wants or as little as he asks. He’ll lean back with his eyes closed and his hand waving as if he’s conducting music while Harry talks about the Dursleys. He’ll come up with absurd ideas for revenge on Harry’s relatives and laugh about them with him.

And he buys Harry a birthday gift that has Harry giving him a long, narrow-eyed glance when he takes it out of the wrapping.

“What?” Theodore asks innocently.

“A historical book about Dark Lords was one thing, but this is a less than subtle hint,” Harry replies, turning the book over. It has a cover picture, not always the case with books in the wizarding world, and it depicts a woman holding a bat in one hand and a snake in the other. _Take Over the World With Dark Arts_! says the title. There’s no author listed.

Theodore doesn’t say anything. Harry looks over at him to see if he’s going to laugh, and finds him leaning towards Harry and staring, the way he did sometimes during the past year at school when he almost caught Harry using his shadow powers.

“You’re the likeliest candidate I know,” Theodore says softly.

“To take over the world?” Harry snorts and opens the book. There are a few spells listed, but most of the book seems to focus on manipulation techniques. That might be interesting. “I don’t care enough about most people to want to rule them. Thank you for the book, though,” he remembers to add.

“I think it’s a requirement that you not care much about most people, in order to take over the world,” Theodore says, smiling as he picks up the breakfast tray he and Harry have been eating from. “And you’re welcome.”

Harry rolls his eyes as he watches a house-elf pop up to take the tray from Theodore. “Why don’t you do it? You don’t care that much about most people, either.”

“I never had the power. You do.”

“You know I don’t care that much about being the Boy-Who-Lived.” And honestly, it seems that most people don’t care that much about it anymore, either. That’s something Harry is proud of. He acted like an ordinary or average student all year, at least on the surface, and so people have to treat him as ordinary and average.

“I wasn’t talking about that.”

Harry laughs a little uneasily. Theodore’s eyes are so piercing that he may actually see through shadows, both the kind Harry travels through and the kind Harry tries to throw. “I don’t have that much magical power, either.”

“You deflected the Bone-Breaking Curse with a fourth-year spell. Do you know I studied the Shield Charm after you started teaching it to me and Thomas? It shouldn’t be able to turn back that spell anyway, unless practiced by a wizard seventh year and up.”

“Quirrell was a horrible teacher and half our books for that class are wrong. You know that. And will you call him Dean? You gave him permission to call you Theodore.”

“He wanted to, and it puts him at ease. But I call him by the name that reflects the distance between us. I always call people exactly what I want to call them and what I think they should be called. It always makes a statement about what I feel.”

“Except with me.”

“Why not with you?”

“You joke about me being your lord, but you don’t mean that.”

Theodore smiles, and says nothing. Harry decides that he is going to change the subject, this time to one of the Dark spells that they learned from a book in Aethelred’s library. And Theodore _is_ joking. Harry’s read about Dark Lords; they have so much more political power and _caring_ than he does. Voldemort wanted to change the world, even if the way he did it was stupid.

Harry doesn’t want to change the world. He wants a few specific people to like him and the rest to leave him alone.

*

“You said something about hearing a voice in the walls. So I brought you someone else who people think hears voices.”

Harry blinks at Theodore and blinks at the young girl Theodore is holding by the wrist, to make sure that she doesn’t wander away. She has blonde hair and an expression so dreamy that Harry thinks it probably challenges his expression in Potions when he’s concentrating on his daydreams to get through the class without cursing Snape. She looks up at him, and her eyes widen a little.

“Theodore says you are my lord,” she says in a high, breathy voice. “Are you?”

“No, I’m no one’s lord, just Harry Potter,” Harry says, and gives Theodore a dirty look when he laughs. “What’s your name?”

“Luna Lovegood. I hear the Nargles when they talk, and the Blibbering Humdingers. I’ve never heard the Heliopaths yet, but I haven’t really concentrated. Do you hear those voices?”

“Not unless they’re in the walls and they’re always hungry and talking about wanting to rip and tear,” Harry tells her. He doesn’t understand why Theodore really brought Luna, but he supposes he has to deal with her now that she’s here. “Do you want to go the library—where are your shoes?”

“Oh, some of the Nargles took them. Or perhaps the Mistletoe Thieves. They’re very common and neglected, you know. They steal because they want people to pay attention to them, but they don’t take attention well.”

Harry narrows his eyes a little. “I see.” Luna may hear voices, but it’s just as likely that she’s speaking the way Harry used to, the way Longbottom did last year when Malfoy cornered him. Desperate words to make the situation better. “You wouldn’t be able to point out any of the Mistletoe Thieves to me?”

“I don’t know, my lord. They’re very secretive.”

Harry sighs. The last thing he needs is Theodore’s joke spreading to other people. “Well, can you tell me where your shoes were when you last saw them?”

He catches Theodore’s smile from over Luna’s shoulder, and rolls his eyes at him. He understands why Theodore actually brought the girl to him. She’s a distraction from voices and the fear of going crazy that Harry’s been dealing with all through his second year. And maybe Theodore knows enough to figure out that Harry will want to punish the people who bullied Luna.

It’s a bit creepy that someone knows him that well, Harry realizes when he thinks it through. But it’s gone too far for him to turn his back on Theodore now.

*

“ _Serpensortia_!”

Just one simple word, and all his life has changed. Harry scowls at the floor as people around him whisper in the Slytherin common room. Some are avoiding him. Some stare at him the way people did last year when the Boy-Who-Lived nonsense was new. And everyone acts like speaking to snakes is remarkable, whether they think it’s a good or a bad thing.

Harry doesn’t think it is. In fact, he thinks it’s probably another side-effect of the Horcrux, one of the things he learned about from _Secrets of the Darkest Art_. If certain people get snake-like features from making a Horcrux, why wouldn’t you also be able to talk to snakes? And Voldemort can talk to snakes. People are telling Harry that _now_.

Harry sighs irritably. It’s not even the most remarkable thing he can do! Not that he wants to reveal his shadow magic to anyone, but for something that freaks everyone out...

“Are you all right?”

Harry glances up and blinks in surprise as Theodore sits down opposite him. Harry thought Theodore would either be happy that his ability to talk to serpents has been revealed or relieved that the mystery of the voice in the walls has been solved; of course Harry is hearing a snake. Instead, Theodore’s grey eyes are burning with a pale flame.

“Yes?” Harry asks, hating the way the common room falls silent to hear his voice. He scowls at them and stands up, retreating to the bedroom. Theodore follows him. Harry sits down on his bed and repeats, “Yes. It’s annoying, but it’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened to him.”

“I don’t want bad things to happen to you, period,” Theodore says, in a voice deep enough to make Harry blink. “Should I curse someone to take the attention off you? Malfoy, perhaps?”

Harry does manage to smile then. “No, it’s all right. I’ll continue to keep my head down and not demonstrate Parseltongue in front of them, and eventually people will forget about it.”

*

So Harry hopes, but it turns out that _someone_ is Petrifying people and leaving messages written in blood on the walls. Something about the Chamber of Secrets. People actually ask Binns and other professors about it, and Binns is the one who tells them: a secret chamber with a monster inside it that Salazar Slytherin and his heirs can unleash to drive “Mudbloods” from the school.

Harry thinks this is the stupidest thing he’s ever heard in his life. Muggleborns belong in the school as much as anyone. Harry can’t even tell the difference between Muggleborns and pure-bloods unless people tell him what they are. Dean picked up the Shield Charm as fast as Theodore last year. Why should anyone think blood has to do with power?

Why does _anyone_ think he’s the Heir of Slytherin? He had a Muggleborn mother, for fuck’s sake! Most people don’t even think that he’s a proper Slytherin. And he’s not the kind of grandstanding idiot who would leave a secret chamber full of snakes in the school.

Theodore and Luna start shadowing him as he goes between classes. Harry tells them that they don’t have to, but that’s only until the first time that some Gryffindors think this is the perfect time to ambush him.

Dean isn’t with them, thank goodness, or Harry would have to question one of his few friends. But Weasley has his arms folded, and the sandy-haired Finnigan who questioned Harry last year is right behind him, and the bushy-haired Granger has a scowl on her face, and even Longbottom is lurking on the fringes of the crowd.

“So!” Weasley says, in what he probably assumes is an impressive voice. That only lasts until Harry gives him a flat stare, but his voice is only a little lower when he starts again. “You must be the Heir of Slytherin, Potter!”

“Why?”

“Because you can _talk to snakes_!”

Harry waits, and then snorts as silence fills the corridor. “I’m sorry, this was the part where I was waiting for your horrified gasps. But I think that even Gryffindors know by now that this isn’t really news.”

“Who else can it be?” Granger inches forwards, scowling at him. “You’ve got a Muggleborn Gryffindor and a Hufflepuff Petrified, but no Slytherins!”

“So am I exempting the Ravenclaws, too?” Harry rolls his eyes when they all hesitate. “Oh, look, a piece of evidence that doesn’t fit with your ‘theory.’ Now, slink back to your common room and clear the way.” He steps around the Gryffindors. He’s on his way to Astronomy, and he’s going to have to be up late enough tonight without dealing with any disappointment from Professor Sinistra.

“You have a Ravenclaw friend!” Weasley declares, pointing at Luna with one finger.

“Yes, and I have a Muggleborn Gryffindor friend, too,” Harry counters, irritated. “Dean hasn’t been Petrified. If you’re going to use the Petrifications as evidence, then you’re going to have to find better ones.”

The Gryffindors get out of the way, but there are confused looks and murmurs after him. Harry rolls his eyes. “They’re so desperate to find a hero or a villain, and they want to press me into that role,” he says in disgust.

“Some people just never heed their own brain-worms,” Luna says breathily.

Theodore doesn’t say anything, but he reaches forwards and grips Harry’s shoulder, hard, then lets his hand fall.

*

Harry has another chat with Professor Dumbledore after Granger is Petrified. Dumbledore calls him up to the office and sighs at him when Harry refuses tea and refuses lemon drops and refuses to look him straight in the eye. Harry knows some more about Legilimency now and how it works, and he is absolutely sure that Dumbledore is a Legilimens.

“Harry. I know that we didn’t get along much last year, and you weren’t able to tell me anything about who stole the Philosopher’s Stone. But surely you must see that the Petrifications have advanced to the point where you must share information with me.”

“What makes you think I have it, sir?”

“Your Head of House has hinted that you have your ways of knowing things, Mr. Potter.”

Harry wants to roll his eyes. Snape has largely left him alone this year, letting Harry dream through class and giving him Acceptables on everything, but of course he has to get in this petty strike when he talks to Dumbledore. “Well, I don’t know anything, sir. Just because I’m a Parselmouth doesn’t make me evil.”

“The last Heir of Slytherin was a boy called Tom Riddle, Jr. Which is the mortal name of Voldemort.”

Dumbledore says that casually, but his eyes are absolutely fixed on Harry. Harry sighs. “And, sir? I’m not the Heir of Slytherin.”

“Anything that you could report to me, Harry...if you know anything about where the entrance is or what the creature is that is causing these Petrifications...”

 _If I figured out that it was a basilisk, then you can do it, too_. Harry sighs. “I don’t know anything. I certainly don’t know where the entrance is. Why would I do something that would endanger me and my friends? One of my friends is Muggleborn, you know. Why wouldn’t I tell you if I knew?”

Dumbledore hems and haws about it, but it’s very clear that of course he isn’t going to tell Harry that he knows he’s a Horcrux and that’s where his Parseltongue abilities come from, so in the end Harry leaves the office with nothing said between them except vague warnings to “pay attention, dear boy, pay attention.”

Harry is fairly sure that Dumbledore could figure out not just what is Petrifying the students but where it is if he cared. He’s so much more powerful than Harry will ever be. He’s had years more in the wizarding world to study all kinds of secrets and magic. It’s ridiculous that he has to ask children to spy for him.

Harry is unimpressed.

*

The Weasleys are crying. Apparently someone painted a message in blood on the walls about Ginny Weasley, the little first-year girl Harry hasn’t noticed much, and took her down into the Chamber to lie there forever.

Harry has other things to worry about. For example, it’s become clear that it’s other Ravenclaw children who are bullying Luna, not imaginary beasts. So Harry wraps the shadows around himself and remains near the entrance of Ravenclaw Tower until two of them come out, girls in Luna’s year.

Harry has been practicing with the shadows. As fun as it was to torment Malfoy last year with wolves and snakes, it was also fairly obvious, and someone might manage to realize that he practices shadow magic from that. Now, he breathes out, and a shadow below the torch at the bottom of the stairs blows out and engulfs the two Ravenclaws.

There’s screaming and clawing at their faces; they assume they’ve gone blind. Harry slides forwards, his steps soundless, and reaches out and grabs their arms when they’re about to try and find the stairs.

Twin screams echo as they feel his hand on their arms. Harry smiles and lowers his face. “I’m going to hurt you if you don’t leave Luna Lovegood alone,” he breathes out. He’s worked a charm to deepen his voice, since the shadows can’t affect the way he sounds, but he doesn’t think he would be recognized even if he spoke in his normal voice. They’re reeling and blinded right now.

And still, no one has any reason to suspect he will do this.

“Loony?” asks one of the girls, who seems to be startled out of her fear by the unexpectedness of the request.

Harry pinches her arm hard, making her shriek. “Her name is _Luna_. You’ll call her that from now on and return her shoes and anything else you took. If you don’t, then I’ll take you into the darkness.”

“What happens then?” demands the girl who spoke before, obviously the braver one.

“You won’t return.”

As Harry thought, the simpler threat frightens them far more than a more specific one; it gives their imaginations room to work. They scream and sob and promise, and Harry lets them go and vanishes into the shadows again.

The next day, Luna is wearing her shoes, and Ginny Weasley is back after all; apparently Dumbledore rescued her. Harry sits at dinner and smiles, ignoring the deep, dark looks that Dumbledore is sending him. He enjoys the way most of the first-year Ravenclaws hunch over their meals far more.

He knew people only needed a little _encouragement_.

*

This time, Dumbledore tries to have the Weasleys keep an eye on Harry on the train. He rolls his eyes and disappears early, remaining in the shadows as he sits in a corner and reads and watches people search frantically for him. Harry cheerfully reappears in a shadow in the corner of the station and joins Theodore and Aethelred on the way to their house.

Theodore insists on practicing more Dark Arts spells with Harry this summer, and being with him as much as possible. Aethelred seems to be writing lots of letters and doesn’t have as much time to teach Harry Potions, which is a little disappointing. Harry is seeing Potions now as something that can be fascinating in its own right, even if they will never matter to him as much as his shadows do.

Theodore is the one who comes into his bedroom one morning where Harry is barely awake and announces, “The Dark Lord is back.”

“Huh?” Harry sits up, yawns, and rubs his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“My father says that the Dark Lord has returned. With the help of the Philosopher’s Stone. And he might visit the house.”

Harry watches Theodore silently. He knows exactly what he is going to do if Voldemort tries to kill him. He’s going to melt through the shadows and never return to Hogwarts or Theodore’s house. He can make a living in Knockturn Alley with what he knows now, and his ability to brew some basic potions, cast some Dark spells, and find people’s secrets. He will miss Theodore and Luna and Dean, but he’s not going to stay here and be killed because some people want to grovel and kiss Voldemort’s robes.

Theodore reaches out, seeming to understand Harry’s thoughts, and grips his hands tightly. “I would never let him hurt you.”

“How could you stop him?” Harry asks.

Theodore’s lips tighten, which Harry assumes means that he wasn’t supposed to ask that question. “You can protect yourself, and I’ll support you,” he finally says instead.

Harry nods. “Do you think your father is going to take up the status of an active Death Eater again?”

“He’s been writing to the Dark Lord.” Theodore’s voice is low, and he looks off to the side and flushes. “I sneaked into his office and looked at his letters. He’s agreed to serve him. That’s one reason the Dark Lord might visit.”

Harry nods again, unsurprised. Aethelred is a lot like he would be, if Harry was melancholy and didn’t have shadow magic. He’ll go along with the dictates of a more powerful wizard because there’s a strong chance that doing so will see him left alone to practice his potions. Harry might be willing to do the same thing, but because of his name and supposed deeds, Voldemort is never going to leave him alone.

“Are you going to leave?”

Harry studies Theodore. His face is calm and shut-down, but his hands are clutching Harry’s so hard that they’re going numb. Harry tries to squeeze back, although his hands are numb, and he finally pulls them back and says, “I’m going to wait and see if he comes and tries to kill me. If he doesn’t, then I’ll stay.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

Harry rolls his eyes. The one good thing about Voldemort visiting, he thinks, the _one_ good thing, is that Theodore will have to stop calling him that name because Voldemort might take offense.

*

Voldemort comes strolling up the gravel lane that leads to the front of the Nott house in a handsome dark-haired body. He does have red eyes, Harry notes dispassionately from near the apple tree he’s been reading under. He also has a lot of height Harry didn’t expect for some reason and a white face with ripples of scales under the skin.

Harry isn’t hiding invisibly under a shadow because he doesn’t want to test that magic in front of someone who might recognize it. Voldemort can see him. He stops and looks at Harry for a long time. Harry looks steadily back. He expected stinging or something in his scar, but there’s nothing except that steady gaze.

Voldemort finally nods and says, “So you are Harry Potter.”

“Yes, sir,” Harry says, aware that Theodore is hovering behind the door of the house. He told his father he wanted to greet Voldemort right away himself, but it’s an excuse to be nearby in case Harry needs him. Harry finds it good and exasperating at the same time. It’s not like Theodore can _help_ him if Voldemort hurls a Dark curse.

“I understand that I have your help to thank for getting the Philosopher’s Stone.”

“I did tell Dumbledore that I had no idea who might have stolen it,” Harry says mildly. He’s cursing in the back of his mind, though. Did Theodore or his father tell Voldemort that Harry did something more active than that? Harry is going to kill them if so. But not before he terminally embarrasses Aethelred.

“I meant that you have decided not to fight against me. Not to be the hero that it seemed Dumbledore was trying to turn you into.”

That’s a better take on the situation than Harry hoped for, given that he couldn’t have known Voldemort was the one who was after the Stone. He slowly shakes his head. “I have no desire to fight you, sir.”

“But why not? I killed your parents.”

“I never really knew them. Maybe it helped to turn me into the person I became, even. And I like the person I am.”

Voldemort examines him narrowly for a time, then gives him an even narrower smile. “As long as you stay out of my way and continue not to oppose me, Harry Potter, I see no reason not to continue as we have been.” And he sweeps on so fast that Theodore barely has time to open the door for him.

Harry leans back against the apple tree and contemplates the summer sun, the warm sky, the soft shadow at his feet, all things he might lose if he fights Voldemort. Then he decisively shakes his head. Something huge would have to change for it to be worth it.

Voldemort might still try to kill him in a few years’ time. Or he might learn that Harry has a Horcrux in him and try to take the shadow magic away from him. But those are the only things Harry thinks could change his stance.

*

Going back to Hogwarts is the same as ever, except that Harry sits with both Theodore and Luna on the train and not just Theodore. Dean stopped by to stay hello and then went to play Exploding Snap with Finnigan. Harry honestly has no idea what Dean sees in the vast majority of Gryffindors, but then, he would hate to be judged as a typical Slytherin by people who hate Malfoy.

Theodore leaves briefly and comes back in looking pale. He sits down next to Harry and asks, “What do you know about Sirius Black?”

Harry blinks. He knows a little about the recent history of the war, but not a whole lot that doesn’t focus on his parents, him, and Voldemort. “That he betrayed my parents and got sentenced to life in Azkaban. That’s it.”

Theodore hesitates as if debating with himself, then says, “He was also your godfather,” and extends the _Daily Prophet_ that he’s holding.

Harry gives him a dirty look. He hasn’t read the rag himself since last year when some bored writer ran a story on him being the next Dark Lord and interviewed several of the students who thought he was the Heir of Slytherin to do it.

Theodore shakes the paper at him, so Harry sighs and picks it up. And there on the front is the headline about Sirius Black’s _escape_ from Azkaban.

Harry shakes his head as he reads. Honestly, he isn’t impressed with the wizarding world most of the time. Hogwarts is supposedly the safest place in Britain, and it’s had the Philosopher’s Stone stolen from it and a giant basilisk Petrifying people in just two years. Now the inescapable prison has been escaped from, and no one knows how Black did it.

Of course, the article also goes on to detail how Harry is going to be Black’s next victim because he was muttering something about “He’s at Hogwarts” and reminds readers helpfully that Harry is an orphan because of Black. Harry shakes his head again. No, he’s an orphan because of Voldemort. It’s really weird how no one even _tries_ to remember these things.

“So what are you going to do?” Theodore asks as Harry surfaces from the (long) article.

“What do you mean?” Harry asks as he hands the paper back.

“You’ll have to stay inside when the other third-years go to Hogsmeade. You should probably have an escort around you every time you go outside the school, in fact. You never know where Black might try to—”

“I’m not going to do any of those things,” Harry interrupts. “First of all, I won’t be going to Hogsmeade anyway, since Dumbledore wrote to me that he refuses to honor your father’s signature on the permission slip. Second, I won’t live my life in fear. Third, I can just write to the person holding Black’s leash.”

Theodore blinks, once, twice, several times. Then he says weakly, “Oh,” and darts a glance at Luna.

Luna is apparently playing naughts and crosses with herself and losing. She glances up and says, “Did you imply something about my hair?”

“No,” Theodore says. “Only about your ears.”

“Oh, they close when I want them to,” Luna says airily, and turns back to her game.

Theodore looks at Harry. Harry nods. He folds up the paper and hands it back to Theodore, and that should really be that, at least until he can write a letter to Voldemort and tell him to reclaim his errant Death Eater.

*

That should be all. But it’s not.

Harry stalks into the Great Hall and takes a seat at the end of the Slytherin table. No one, not even Malfoy, who opens his mouth, says anything to him. Perhaps they’ll talk to him about fainting on the train later, but for now...

For now, Harry is enraged, and he can feel the shadows churning around him, ripping and trembling at the edges in a way that no one else will notice unless they’re used to looking. He calms himself down forcibly. He can’t reveal his magic in front of the Great Hall like this. It would be idiotic.

But the Dementors.

Harry pours himself a glass of milk and takes a long drink. He used to think he hated the Dursleys. He used to think he hated Snape, or at least people like Snape, given how well he handled his professor. He used to think he hated bullies.

He hates Dementors more than any of them.

They _foul_ the shadows. They glide through them and wrap them around themselves and make them cold and useless. Harry tried to reach out and wrap himself in invisibility when he first sensed the Dementors coming towards him, but he couldn’t. Any shadow they touch might as well be as intangible to Harry as anyone else.

Harry wants to destroy them.

He is going to figure out a way.

Compared to his desire to wipe them from the face of the planet, the fact that he fainted on the train and heard his mother screaming as she died is nothing.

*

Harry waits to bang his head into the wall until he is back in the common room from the Owlery. At least people don’t stare at him this year since him being a Parselmouth is old news now. Now they just stare at him because they must know Black escaped and is hunting for him.

“Bad news?” Theodore asks, his eyes cool and curious.

Harry holds out the letter Voldemort sent back to him, a full week after his initial one about Black. It says only, _Black was never one of my Death Eaters_.

“Well,” Theodore says consolingly after a minute, “we have a new mystery to investigate, then.”

Harry can’t share his quest to destroy the Dementors with Theodore, since it would mean revealing his shadow magic. He can’t share his doubts about Voldemort when Theodore’s life probably depends on his father’s compliance.

But he can share this, and the “we” warms him into a wordless smile that Theodore returns.


	5. Shadows Black and Grey

 

Harry first tries to deal with the problem of Black by looking up old newspaper articles. That’s how he learns exactly how many Muggles Black killed—or supposedly killed—and of the death of Peter Pettigrew. All they found of him was a finger.

Once again, Harry has to put his head down on one of the tables in the library for a while. Why would _anyone_ assume someone is dead if all they find is a finger? For that matter, why would you assume your enemy is dead without a body?

(Harry does have to pause here to acknowledge that most people would not be as paranoid as he is, or think of the whole world as enemies).

The newspapers are accurate about Black’s lack of a trial. And with Voldemort’s denial, Harry’s suspicion turns inevitably towards Pettigrew. He sends Voldemort another letter, despite Theodore’s wince, asking if Pettigrew was one of his Death Eaters and if there is the chance that the man could have hidden his death by cutting off a finger.

This time, the letter is more helpful.

_Peter was indeed mine, although I assumed him long dead. He was an unregistered Animagus whose form was a rat. The fact that he never approached any of my Death Eaters over the years, even the ones who escaped Azkaban, suggests that he died._

No, it doesn’t, Harry thinks as he crumples up this particular letter. It suggests that Pettigrew is a bloody coward who has some sense; Death Eaters like Theodore’s father would probably turn him in to the Ministry to prove their “loyalty.” But the idea of him being an unregistered Animagus and Black muttering about going to Hogwarts suggests he could be here.

Now Harry only has to find a rat in a gigantic castle. A rat that is probably missing a toe.

And Harry will have to study spells to keep an Animagus from transforming and to trap rodents, too. He doesn’t currently have any way to restrain Pettigrew if he captures him. Perhaps then he can arrange to deliver him to Black and Black will leave him in peace.

*

Luna showed up missing shoes after the first fortnight. So Harry has to wait at the bottom of the stairs up to Ravenclaw Tower again, interrupting his busy schedule of homework, dreaming through Snape’s class, ignoring Dumbledore and the pitying glances that people give him because of Black being his godfather, and studying rat-restraining traps. It’s annoying.

More than annoying, when the spell that he cast to identify someone in contact with Luna’s stolen belongings flashes on the same girls he terrified last year as they come down the stairs. For Ravenclaws, they aren’t that bright. Harry is kind of glad he wasn’t Sorted into that House now, for all he doesn’t feel he fits in Slytherin either.

He calls up the shadows and breathes out. Once again, the girls go blind. Once again, they scream and claw at their faces. It’s all so predictable.

But Harry does get to try out a new aspect of shadow magic this time, one that he didn’t know about last time. That makes him smile as he holds up a hand and shadow pools in his palm.

“I told you to leave Luna alone,” he says, and his voice booms from several directions, coming out of every point where there’s a shadow. The girls stop screaming and cower. “If you can’t do that, then I suppose I’ll have to punish you.”

“You—you can’t—we didn’t—”

“I know you touched something that belongs to her,” Harry continues implacably. “You cooperated in hiding it, too,” he adds, as another charm that tells him if the person was an active bully or just a passive one comes into play and highlights the girl who spoke with blue. “Such a pity. You probably had a life ahead of you where you did something other than bully little girls.”

He glides forwards.

The one he hasn’t targeted, who hasn’t spoken up until now, snaps and runs screaming up the stairs. Harry ignores her. She might have touched something belonging to Luna by accident or brushed against clothing in the bathroom. His goal is the other one.

The girl does fall to her knees, tears making their way down her cheeks. “Please, please, I’ll leave her alone, I _promise_!”

“That was what you said last time,” Harry murmurs, taking her arm. “And you didn’t learn.”

He flickers away through the shadows, taking the girl with him. At a point where two shadows turn and converge, joining together, he releases her. The girl tumbles away down the grey path into the darkness. For her, there is no path; with Harry’s blinding shadows stretched across her face, Harry doubts she could see it even if it does exist for her.

Harry smiles and jumps away to the Slytherin common room. The way that the girl will come out of the shadows, if he’s correct about it from his tests on Muggles this summer, means that she’ll be found, eventually, somewhere far from Ravenclaw Tower, wandering and raving and mad, unable to tell anyone anything coherent about what he did to her.

It’s all she deserves.

*

“Once again, Harry, I find myself asking you to help me. Will you _please_ help me find out why one of the second-year Ravenclaws was found wandering and sobbing this morning? Her name is Amanda Serling. She suffered some accident that has left her—it has ruined her life. Will you tell me what you know?”

“What makes you think I know anything, Headmaster? I’m only friends with a few people who aren’t in my year. Why would I know anything about a second-year in a different House than mine?”

“I thought your friend Miss Lovegood might have mentioned her to you. I understand that she and Miss Lovegood have had some less than pleasant interactions.”

Harry lifts his head slowly and fixes his eyes on Dumbledore. His vision narrows the way it does when he’s walking through a shadow. For a moment, he’s filled with rage in the way that he’s got in the past when thinking of the Dursleys.

He assumed Dumbledore was unaware of Luna’s being bullied, since the man seemed so unaware of the basilisk in the school or who stole the Philosopher’s Stone. But now it seems as if the man knows all about it.

That entitles him to no mercy whatsoever.

Harry smiles, and if Dumbledore sees the width of it and not the edge to it, that’s his problem. “Luna never talks about names to me. It’s not her way. Now, if that will be all, Headmaster? I’m rather busy this term.”

*

“I found a spell that will charm the whole cage you use to contain Pettigrew, not just him,” Theodore whispers, sliding in beside Harry on the couch where Harry is studying for Ancient Runes.

“You did?” Harry grins at Theodore and lets his book fall shut. Ancient Runes and Arithmancy are both interesting, but tiring; Harry needs lots of short breaks in order to keep his brain matched to them. They were the only optional classes for third year that fascinated him. Harry doesn’t need Divination to spy out secrets, he has less than no interest in Muggle Studies, and the Care of Magical Creatures class looked interesting but limited. Harry thinks he knows more about creatures through spying on them in the shadows of the Forbidden Forest and the one behind the Nott house than he’ll ever know in a course.

Theodore nods, his black hair falling into his eyes for a moment. Harry finds himself following the motion of the hair with a glance, then shakes his head to break the spell. “Yes. The incantation is Caveam defendo. The wand motion is the same as the one for that warding spell you found the other day.”

Harry practices the spell on the small cage he’s already secured to trap Pettigrew when they find him. There’s a glow that settles into the bars. Harry puts a mouse he Transfigured from a teacup inside it and watches it run around, being bounced back from the bars every time it ventures near them, and unable to run out the door even when it’s open.

He leans back and grins at Theodore. “Thanks. You’re the best.”

“Anything to be of service to my lord.”

Harry sighs. He should have addressed this a long time ago, he thinks now, but it seemed like a harmless joke. Now, though, Theodore calls Harry his lord in front of the other Slytherins. It gets them some mutters and sidelong glances. Harry never wants his best friend to suffer from taking a joke too far. “Listen, Theodore. Can you please call me Harry?”

“Why?”

“It’s making other Slytherins think you’re weak, just like the Death Eaters who followed Voldemort were. I don’t want them to think that about you.”

Theodore looks long and intently into Harry’s eyes. Harry just waits. He trusts Theodore to make the right decision, and in this case, the right one is to stop making other people think he’s weak, when he’s just—Theodore.

“It’s not a joke,” Theodore says finally, softly. “And following someone in and of itself doesn’t make you weak. Only following someone unworthy does.”

Harry narrows his eyes. “That’s not true. I can’t think of any way that following someone would make me strong.”

“That’s because you’re a born leader, Harry, or a born loner. I suppose Thomas and Lovegood and I are the ones who make you a leader, since we won’t leave you alone.” Theodore leans back in his chair. “I won’t call you that in front of the others anymore if it makes you uncomfortable. But I chose you as my lord years ago. I told you once that what I call people is the truth and speaks about their distance from me. That’s true now, too.”

Harry stares at him. Then he shakes his head and asks, “But what about Voldemort?” He does keep his voice low, since not even many of the Slytherins know Voldemort has returned; Theodore told him it’s pretty much limited to Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and an upper-year Avery cousin.

“What about him?”

“Well, your father serves him. What are they going to do when it turns out _you’re_ not going to serve him?”

“You’ll protect me.”

There’s utter faith shining in Theodore’s eyes. Harry stares back, overwhelmed, and then nods, because of course he will, just the way he protects Luna from being bullied. He never thought he’d see it like that on his best friend’s face, is all.

It makes him a little breathless. And although he still isn’t going to tell Theodore why, he gets out one of the massive tomes he’s smuggled out of the library and says, “I’m also working on a way to destroy Dementors forever. Do you want in?”

Theodore’s smile takes all his remaining breath away.

*

As it turns out, Black attacks Gryffindor Tower on Halloween, and scratches up the portrait. That narrows Harry’s search considerably. And when he overhears the twin Weasleys talking about how sick their little brother’s pet rat is, Harry smiles in victory.

He waits until Weasley is heading towards the infirmary with the rat to see if Madam Pomfrey can cure him, something he overheard would be happening by listening from the shadows. And then he steps smoothly out of a shadow behind Weasley, blinds him, and carries off his prize in triumph before Weasley can even let out a yell.

The rat is stiff with terror in Harry’s hands for a second before he begins struggling. Harry turns him over and smiles when he sees the missing toe. Then he Stuns him and takes him the quick way back to Slytherin, leaping in and out of shadows that fall between doorways and then into one that stretches across the seemingly blank wall where the door of the common room is.

Theodore is waiting up for him in a dark corner by the fire. Harry displays Pettigrew in silence and drops him into the warded cage. Theodore adds his own warding spell to the bars just in case, and they watch the rat in silence for a second.

“What are you going to do now?” Theodore finally asks. It’s a question he’s never asked before, despite Harry pursuing Pettigrew with a single-minded intensity for the last two months.

“Send him to Black. He can do whatever he likes with him. Maybe he’ll be smart enough to send him to the Ministry for a trial, but I doubt it. At least he’ll go away and the Dementors will go with him when they realize that he’s either innocent or gone.”

“You’re—not going to kill him for what he did to your parents?”

Harry blinks at Theodore. The thought of vengeance hasn’t occurred to him, any more than he really wants to go back and get revenge on the Dursleys. It’s just pointless. “No. Why?”

“I thought you would.”

Harry shakes his head. “I would still defend you if you ever needed it,” he reassures Theodore. “The same way I would Luna or Dean. I just—don’t care if it happened to me. If it happens to me, I’ll stop it. But what _happened_ doesn’t matter very much.”

“I’m very glad that our friendship is a thing that happened that you still care about.”

Harry reaches out, squeezes Theodore’s hand tightly, and goes to the Owlery to send the rat to Black. He asks the owl, sternly, not to eat Pettigrew on the way.

*

“If it isn’t the master of the disappearing act!”

“The wizard of Apparition!”

“The doer of the impossible!”

“Mr. Harry Potter HIMSELF!”

Harry snorts as he leans against a wall. He deliberately allowed the Weasley twins to find him after watching them from the shadows for weeks. They kept staring at what looks like a piece of parchment in their hands as they tracked him, and that made Harry intrigued enough to confront them.

Besides, he tolerates them as well as he tolerates anyone who isn’t Theodore, Luna, or Dean. They play pranks that Harry likes to watch, and they keep secrets better than anyone except him. They particularly target Snape, which Harry particularly likes. He sometimes does them a good turn back by throwing an echo or a distracting shadow when one of the professors or prefects comes near them, giving them time to flee.

“We really want to know,” begins the twin on the left as he halts opposite Harry.

“How you get around Hogwarts without leaving a trace,” says the twin on the right.

“Using passages we don’t know about.”

“Which is almost impossible.”

“ _Almost_ , let’s leave a little window open for the impossible, Fred.”

“And popping up in distant places so fast.”

“We’ve even seen you in the Headmaster’s office.”

“Which really is impossible, just ask the gargoyle.”

“And so,” finishes the one who must be George, and they both look at Harry expectantly.

Harry snorts again. “First tell me how you were tracking me. Then _maybe_ I’ll give you a hint and see if you can figure it out.” He’s no more frightened than he’s ever been of someone finding out about his shadow magic. Even if they did, the possibility of retreat is always open. Harry is a great collector of Galleons that other students think they’ve lost and rare books and Potions ingredients that they leave on the floor, and he’s amassed some tidy money sending the Galleons to Gringotts and selling the books and ingredients in Slytherin—sometimes even to their original owners.

Part of Harry still thinks he would enjoy living in Knockturn Alley and making his money by his wits. It’s the most shadowy place he’s ever visited, combined with the greatest number of people who avoid looking into the shadows.

The twins give each other significant looks and nods, and then George pulls out a piece of parchment that he extends. When Harry leans over it, he can see a moving map of the school, labeled with clusters of dots. Beside each dot is a name. They’re hard to read inside the places like Gryffindor and Ravenclaw Tower, where too many of the students are too close together, but easily clear in the corridors.

“I see,” Harry says, and shoots an admiring glance at Fred and George. “Did you make this map?”

“No, unfortunately we can’t claim that honor.” Fred puts his hand over his heart.

“The Marauders did,” George says in a hushed voice.

“Who are the Marauders? Or were,” Harry adds. He supposes the map might be old.

“Alas,” Fred says.

“ _Alas._ ” George shakes his head.

“We only know their nicknames.”

“Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs.”

“No more than that.”

Harry nods, relaxing. As long as Fred and George didn’t make the map, he doesn’t need to worry about them as dangerous rivals. “Well, I could tell you about how I get around the school,” he says, and the twins lean forwards so much they almost fall. “But then I would have to kill you.”

The twins pout at him. Then they make loud, long protestations of allegiance. Then they promise to prank whoever Harry wants. Harry grins at them. “But you already prank a bunch of people I dislike, for free. Why give that up?”

“Snape and Malfoy?” George guesses.

“I can neither confirm nor deny,” Harry says, and examines his fingernails.

The twins make some more outrageous claims, but in the end, they’ve got nothing to offer him. Harry grins at them and starts to walk away, only to hear more loud whispering behind him. He rolls his eyes and readies his shields. He wouldn’t put it past them to prank him for not revealing the secret.

Then Fred rushes around in front of him and kneels, which so startles Harry that he comes near to being strangled by a whip of shadow, not that he knows it. He holds up his hands and says, “We hear that Theodore Nott calls you lord. We know of binding lordship oaths that will keep _anyone_ from betraying _any_ secret. If we swore one of those to take you as our lord, would you tell us how you get around the school?”

“Please please please please please please,” adds George from behind Harry, where it turns out he’s kneeling as well.

Harry raises his eyebrows. “I’ve never heard of lordship oaths like that.”

“Why do you think most of You-Know-Who’s Death Eaters stayed faithful to him?” Fred asks. “I mean, sure, some of them claimed they were under the Imperius, but that was only after he was dead.”

“Dead and gone,” George adds, though he sends a sly look at Harry that puts him on his guard. He wouldn’t put it past Crabbe or Goyle to blab about Voldemort’s return in a place where the twins could hear them.

“You don’t want to swear to me as your lord for the cost of one secret,” Harry says. He knows that can’t be true. It’s far too high a price to pay anyone.

“Well, see, your Mighty Lordship, we’ve been watching you for a while, ever since we saw you leaping around the map—”

“Might say you caught our attention, like, Your Potterly Majesty.”

“And we’ve seen the way that you treat your friends, and how you don’t care about most other people and give them free rein as long as they don’t hurt your friends, Your Budding Dark Lordship.”

“And when someone does hurt your friends, we suspect it’s you getting even. Only suspect, of course, Your High Sneakiness.”

“So we think that you’d let us do most of what we want, with maybe a few targeted pranks or cover-ups when necessary.”

“With vicious protection if one of us got hurt.”

“Which is a lot like our family, only they don’t like us playing pranks.”

“Best of both worlds is what we’d get.”

“And thus, we beg you to accept us into your service—”

“Lord Harry,” both twins say at once, and prostrate themselves on the floor in front of him.

Harry thinks for a long time, during which the twins keep bowing, which is its own level of impressively ridiculous or ridiculously impressive; Harry hasn’t made up his mind yet. He’ll have to look over the lordship oaths, of course, to be sure that they actually do what the twins claim they do and don’t have any loopholes. And he’s reluctant to reveal his shadow magic even then. Perhaps he should give the twins clues and see what theories they come up with, the better to deploy such theories if someone else comes close to the truth.

But on the other hand, he’ll have two minions (the first official ones; Theodore is and always will be different). And targeted pranks is a good idea. And the twins are good enough at defending themselves that he won’t always have to be running interference for them the way he’s had to do with Luna and even sometimes Dean, when Gryffindors in the years below him objected to him having a Slytherin for a friend.

“I need to study the lordship oaths and make sure you’re telling the truth,” Harry finally says. “If I can find one that fits our needs, then I’ll cast it.”

The twins bounce to their feet and go into a series of more ridiculous bows.

“Thank you, thank you, Your Great Harry Pottership Sir.”

“Thank you, thank you, O Savior of Our Sanity.”

“Thank you, Master of Secret Passages Yet To Come!”

Harry finally cuts them off and rounds the corner, shaking his head. At least he’s got Pettigrew out of his system. He’ll have to take up the extra research project of lordship oaths now.

*

“The only counter to the Dementors is the Patronus Charm.”

It was Theodore who found that for him, as well as a description of how the Patronus Charm is performed. Harry has looked, but there’s not a whole lot of other useful information on Dementors in the Hogwarts library. Most of it is history, concerning how they came to be the guards of Azkaban, and some of it is descriptions of their breeding cycle, which Harry considers disgusting but read about anyway in case it could be a vulnerability someday. So Harry is in an abandoned classroom practicing the Patronus Charm when Professor Lupin finds him.

“Harry. What are you doing?”

Harry turns around casually. He has his wand, and there’s patches of shadow next to him and one behind Lupin. The new Defense professor is standing in the doorway behind him with an odd look on his face.

Harry despised Lockhart, the one they had last year, and had to dream his way through his classes the way he does with Potions. However, Lupin is a different kettle of staring eyes. He’s a good professor in the sense of teaching them about Dark creatures, although he did oddly prevent Harry from confronting a boggart during their first lesson. But he seems to be interested in Harry and distant from him at the same time. He acts like he expects some kind of connection with Harry as the Boy-Who-Lived, but differently from the little firsties who are still awestruck fans.

Harry doesn’t really like it, and he avoids Lupin as much as he can outside of class. He also wishes the man would call him “Mr. Potter” the way all the other professors do.

Now, though, there’s no reason to hide his practicing. The Patronus Charm is advanced magic but not illegal. “Studying how to repel Dementors,” Harry says, with a little shrug, and faces the back of the classroom again.

He casts, and this time a flicker of silver wisps from his wand. Harry smiles. Not bad for a third-year student without a lot of happy memories to call on.

Lupin clears his throat. Harry turns back towards him with a sigh. “Yes?”

“I know the Patronus Charm well,” Lupin says. “I could also provide a good facsimile of an actual Dementor if that would make things easier for you.”

“What do you want as a trade?”

“Trade? What—Harry, I’m not participating in some Slytherin bargain. I’m your _professor_. I’m _supposed_ to help you.”

Harry eyes the man skeptically. No other professors call him by his first name. No other professors happen on a student practicing magic in a deserted classroom and offer advanced lessons instead of asking which rules they’re breaking. Lupin is up to something.

But since it seems he wants to be close to Harry, Harry decides to accept that as the price of lessons in the Patronus Charm. He dips his head. “Okay.”

*

“You didn’t tell me you were researching lordship oaths.”

Harry blinks and glances up. “I also didn’t hide the books,” he points out as Theodore takes a seat on the stool across from him and offers him a glare. It seems to be the most sincere glare Harry’s got from him in the three years of their friendship. “I thought you knew.”

Theodore lifts a privacy charm around them that Harry knows from experience will make their faces, gestures, and mouths blur to the rest of the Slytherins as well as mute their voices. “If someone is going to swear to you as their Lord, I want to be the first.”

“The Weasley twins were the ones who suggested this. They want to know secrets I have and promised they’d swear one if I could find one that works. You don’t need to swear one, Theodore. You’re already my best friend. I can trust you without an oath.”

“ _I_ chose you as my Lord first. _I_ want official confirmation.”

“The strongest ones I’ve found demand a brand, like the Dark Mark. Do you really want that? Want to wear something on your arm for the rest of your life that you wouldn’t be able to get out of?”

Harry lowers his voice even with the privacy spell, and sees Theodore glaring steadily at him.

“It wouldn’t have to be on my arm.” Theodore’s voice is low and precise. “I started reading some of those books, too, when I saw you with them. It could be anywhere. And yes, I want the brand. I made my choices, my lord. I don’t back out of them.”

Harry hesitates, then breathes out slowly. “Okay. But that means I’ll have to research even more before I choose one of the oaths. I’m not going to brand my best friend with something that will hurt him.”

Theodore’s smile is long and slow and he reaches out and casually takes hold of Harry’s wrist. “Thank you, my lord.”

*

The Dementors are finally withdrawn from Hogwarts near the end of the school year, when the Ministry receives a “sighting” of Black in Surrey and decides that he’s nowhere near Hogwarts anymore. Harry shakes his head. He supposes Black probably killed the rat the instant he got hold of him. Either that or he turned him in to the Ministry and then the Ministry did nothing, as per usual.

Harry does manage a respectable Patronus, although Professor Lupin seems absolutely shocked at the silver Nundu that finally comes leaping out of Harry’s wand when he calls. He keeps giving Harry thoughtful glances through the end of the year. Harry is glad that the man won’t be back next year, having been called to “other duties.”

Harry gets more looks and sighs from Dumbledore when he passes Harry in the corridors, but no more direct interviews. Serling, the Ravenclaw who was bullying Luna, is apparently irretrievably mad and is being locked up in St. Mungo’s long-term care ward for the rest of her life. Harry is just happy that the other Ravenclaws can take a hint and have refrained from taking Luna’s possessions or taunting her. It leaves him freer to do the other things he wants.

He thinks he’s finally chosen the lordship oath he wants, if he _must_ do this—and Theodore doesn’t let him forget—but he intends to practice it intensely first, and perhaps capture a Muggle and do it on them to see about side-effects and casting time. More, it can only be cast at the new moon, and the book recommends not doing more than three people at once. Harry tells Theodore that he intends to test it on the Weasley twins after the beginning of his fourth year and bind Theodore with it on the new moon after that, if it works.

“No. Me first.”

Harry groans and tosses an apple in the air. The herd of battle-trained Granians that are currently staying on the Nott property and are doubtless going to be used by Voldemort in some evil plot in the future fly after it, squabbling. “Why, Theodore? You don’t care about the twins. You don’t have a reason to protect their safety by volunteering to go first.”

“That book said the most intense connection between Lord and vassal comes from the first few times the oath is cast.”

“First _few_ times. You’ll still get an intense one.”

“But some authors use ‘few’ when they mean several and some use ‘few’ to mean two. I’m not taking the chance that you’ll have the most intense connection with those ginger menaces.”

Harry stares at Theodore. Theodore is flushed and his eyes are gleaming. Harry’s never seen him so passionate about anything, even when he first brought up the lordship oath.

“You’re serious,” Harry whispers.

“Of course I am, my lord. What did I say back in April?”

Harry breathes out slowly. He still thought there was a chance this was a joke, that Theodore would change his mind at the last instant and admit he found this whole situation hilarious. But Harry is beginning to think now that he misunderstood Theodore’s sense of humor.

“All right,” he says. “If I can get it right soon, then the new moon in September. Otherwise, October.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Theodore says, and tilts his head down a little, and gives Harry a look that makes his breathing hoarse and his heart rapid.

 _This is a new problem_ , Harry thinks, but he’s intrigued. It seems like a good problem to have.

*

As it turns out, the lordship oath takes much more time to perfect than Harry thought it would. It requires a long incantation in Latin, followed by both the lord and the vassal exchanging oaths in their own wording, followed by a second incantation where the lord visualizes the mark he wants to create and the vassal bares the part of their body that will be marked, drinking a potion, and then a final incantation to seal the oath.

Harry does capture a Muggle to practice with for the new moon in July. Under the _Imperius_ that Aethelred obligingly casts for him, the ritual proceeds perfectly, with the Muggle speaking the modified oath that the Weasley twins will take. Theodore watches intently, but he absolutely refuses to tell Harry what his own oath is so the Muggle can speak it.

“It’s going to be ours and ours alone,” he tells Harry.

The Muggle does writhe and scream, even under the curse, when Harry casts the mark he envisions for everyone other than Theodore, a lightning bolt with a small wolf crouched beside it, in memory of the wolf that bit Malfoy. Harry wanted to use something with a shadow, but he also doesn’t want to reveal what shadows mean to him.

Perhaps it will be...different...with Theodore’s mark.

Harry notes down that they’ll need silencing charms and a painkilling potion. The potion shouldn’t interact badly with the one that the oathtaker needs to drink.

The Muggle finishes the oath and then dies. Harry is extremely disconcerted until Theodore, who’s a natural at potions, points out that the regularly happens to Muggles who consume magical concoctions, no matter what their ingredients. They simply can’t tolerate the mixtures of crystals, poisonous herbs, magical creature body parts, and the like, while a wizard’s magic mixes with the potion to render it effective.

“We’re still doing this, my lord,” he tells Harry, and steps over the tall man’s body to gaze into Harry’s eyes. “Take all the precautions you need, but bind me before the Weasley twins.”

“I swear to you, it will be done.”

Theodore smiles for the rest of the day. Only later does Harry realize that he was probably talking like one of those historical Dark Lords in the books Theodore is always urging him to read.

Well, needs must.

*

“So.”

Harry blinks and looks up from a book on Dementors that he managed to order from Flourish and Blotts. Dean is standing in front of his table in the library, staring at him expectantly. Harry says, “Hi, Dean. I thought you were going to try out for the Quidditch team today and spend all your time abusing poor balls by hitting them at wooden heads?”

Dean sighs very patiently and sits down across from Harry. “Even _you_ ought to be able to remember that all Quidditch is canceled this year thanks to the Tournament.”

“Right,” Harry says. The Tri-Wizard Tournament has occupied most of his Housemates for weeks, with the exception of Theodore. Malfoy is always declaring that he’s going to enter and get eternal glory. Harry took delight in telling him that it’s his one chance to do so, given that otherwise his hopes for glory will die with his father. It’s the only useful thing that Tournament has done for Harry. “So why are you here?”

“I want to join Theodore and Luna today, and they mentioned that you’re very involved with _something_ specific. And I also overheard the Weasley twins talking about you. They’re a little careless, you know. They’re too used to a meter of space on either side of them in case they’re plotting pranks, so they don’t always notice when someone is eavesdropping.”

“Yes? And?” Harry won’t mark Fred and George at all if they can’t keep a damn secret.

Dean leans forwards. “I want in.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do.”

“ _Dean_.” Harry stresses his name, and sees him sit back a little. Maybe this is what is needed to stop him from getting further involved. “It’s a combination research project and—having a deal with people, basically. Luna knows about it, but she’s not involved because it doesn’t appeal to her. The twins were so persistent I’m doing it to quiet them. Theodore is involved because he insists. But I don’t think you would be interested.”

And marking a Muggleborn Gryffindor is a bad, bad idea, Harry’s certain. The twins can pass it off as a joke, Theodore is so bloody committed he can’t back away, and Harry won’t mark Luna. But Dean is right in the middle of the risky “vulnerable because of his blood status” and “vulnerable because he has Housemates who think it’s hilarious to tease him about things like this” intersection. Harry thinks he would even be a little disgusted if he figured it out, thinking Harry’s like Voldemort.

Dean squints at him. “If Luna knows about it, then I can know about it, too. Even if I decide it’s not for me.”

Harry sighs and regrets the lack of a wall to bang his head against. “Oh, very well,” he says, taking out his wand. “But Luna had to swear a wand-vow to me, and you do, too, that you can’t run and tell anyone about what I’m going to say.”

Dean looks insulted as he takes out his own wand. “When have I ever told Seamus or Ron or that lot about anything you say?”

That’s right, the youngest Weasley’s name is Ron. Harry keeps forgetting.

Dean listens in silence as Harry tells him about the lordship oath and the mark and what the twins and Theodore are going to do. He stares at Harry for a while. “But—why do they want to take you as their lord instead of just swearing a vow like the one Luna and I did?”

“With the twins, it’s specifically because they want to know certain things a wand-vow isn’t enough to protect. With Theodore, it’s because he’s made his choice.”

“What if I want to know the secrets the twins know, too?”

“Dean, _no._ ”

“Listen, Harry, I think you’re about the most awesome wizard I know, but I’m tired of the feeling that you’re hiding secrets all the time and Theodore gets to know them and I don’t. I put up with it because you’re in Slytherin together and it’s kind of natural, but if other Gryffindors get to know and I don’t...” Dean lets his words tail off.

Harry shakes his head. “It’s different for you because you’re Gryffindor and someone could find out, and you don’t have the excuse of playing jokes all the time and doing it for a lark that the twins are planning on using if someone finds their marks. Plus, you’re Muggleborn. It would look a lot worse for you to be the marked servant of a lord than it would a pure-blood. People kind of _expect_ that of pure-bloods. Not Muggleborns.”

“Did you know that you’re not the only person who can read history?”

“Huh?”

“Blame yourself, you got me doing it so I can actually pass my History OWL.” Dean’s smile is fleeting. “There have been Muggleborn Dark Lords, Harry. And there have been lots of marked people in history. I suppose because it’s the strongest lordship oath, like you said. It’s only in recent history that people have associated it exclusively with pure-bloods because of Voldemort and Grindelwald. If I want to do this, I should damn well be able to do it.”

“But it’s not all brilliant secrets and awesomeness! The twins mostly wanted to join me because they’d get to know secrets, but they also know I’ll protect them and I’ll let them play pranks. What do you get out of it besides secrets?”

“Belonging. Loyalty. I know you’ve defended me from some of the other Gryffindors, Harry, I’m not blind. But this way I get _even more_ of it. And personal teaching, too, right? Because you can’t let your minions go around with sub-standard learning. Moody’s too paranoid even to teach us Defense properly.”

Harry argues and argues and argues with him, but he leaves the library that night knowing he’s going to have at least four marked vassals by the end of the school year.

He catches the trend of his thoughts and shudders in horror.

_There is no “at least!” There aren’t going to be anymore!_

*

“I promise to serve my lord, Harry Potter, without wavering, without disloyalty, keeping his secrets from all save those whom he has given me permission to share them with. I promise to protect my lord from all threats I can. I promise to bear his mark in pride and wonder. I will keep these promises unless death claims him first, and if I break them, may death claim me.”

Harry wants to howl a protest as Theodore, kneeling in the trampled ring of grass under the darkness of November’s new moon, makes his oath. That is _not_ the one they discussed! Theodore was supposed to promise to keep the secrets unless it was a matter of forfeiting his life, not to die before he betrayed them!

But from Theodore’s glittering smile and eyes, he’s done exactly as he wanted to do, and Harry can’t disrupt the ritual now. He glares at Theodore and carries on with his own oath.

“I promise to protect my vassal, Theodore Nott, without wavering, without disloyalty, keeping his secrets from all save those whom he has given me permission to share them with. I promise to teach him and lead him in all the ways that they can. I promise to respect his freedom and the weight of his soul. I will keep these promises unless death claims him first, and if I break them, may I lose my magic.”

 _Ha_ , Harry gloats to himself as he watches Theodore’s eyes widen. _Take that_. Harry can’t promise that he will die before betraying Theodore; that’s not in him. But the loss of his magic would cripple him and make his life not much worth living, and Theodore knows that.

Now comes the marking. Theodore turns without rising and kneels so that he’s facing away from Harry, but lifts his hair to show the nape of his neck. Harry crouches down and lays his wand against the back of Theodore’s neck, concentrating as hard as he can. Then he speaks the incantation.

Theodore only sighs a little as the mark forms, which is so weird that Harry nearly panics before he remembers what the book said. The mark is influenced by lots of things, but especially the lord’s attitude towards his future vassal. Harry was hostile and indifferent towards the Muggle at best, but he—cares deeply for Theodore.

Harry steps back and stares as the mark forms. It’s a green lightning bolt, and it has a shadow, visible in the form of a softer grey background to the mark. Harry swallows. Well, he knew there was a possibility that his love for shadows would make its way into it.

Theodore turns around, again on his knees, and extends his hand for the potion vial. Harry gives it to him and watches anxiously as he swallows it. Theodore brewed this himself, with Harry checking and rechecking, and even Aethelred checked it for them without knowing what they intended to use it for. (He thinks it’s a prank on a Muggleborn at school). But Harry is still anxious.

Theodore only shudders a little as the potion binds the oath to his soul. Then he holds out his hands. Harry clasps both of them in his left as he makes the necessary sweeps with his wand and chants the final incantation.

It was heavy when he practiced with the Muggle, but now the Latin words are light and flowing. Harry watches as Theodore bows his head, and feels the soft way the vow winds around his own soul. The lord doesn’t drink the potion as part of this ritual, so it’s the final incantation that closes it out and binds Harry to his promises as well.

When Theodore’s been kneeling there for some time without moving, Harry finally whispers, “Are you okay?”

“Never—better,” Theodore says, and opens his eyes.

The minute they meet Harry’s, Harry staggers back with a gasp. There’s a _link_ between them, more than the chain that their mutual promises form. Suddenly Harry can feel Theodore’s magic, a soft grey cloud in the back of his mind that is attractively shadow-like. And he knows that he would be able to follow Theodore’s mark wherever it was, across continents or behind a ton of rock. His hand is shaking as he reaches out to touch Theodore’s neck and his mark.

Theodore shudders and looks up from his knees. “My lord,” he says, and his magic shifts around, and Harry knows his deepest desire without his having to speak it aloud.

Even a day ago, Harry would have hesitated. But now he has the link, and he knows that his own worry over whether the potion and the mark would hurt Theodore is more than he feels for the Weasley twins, or even Dean and Luna.

Harry bends down, and kisses his vassal.


	6. Moving the Shadows

Harry pauses on his way back to the Slytherin common room when he hears someone mention the Dark Mark next to a shadow that he’s keeping half an ear on. It’s the work of a moment to jump to that shadow and peer out through it.

It’s Igor Karkaroff, the Headmaster of Durmstrang, and he’s showing his left arm to a skeptical-looking seventh-year Slytherin. The Slytherin’s eyes widen a moment later, and Harry can see the edge of the Dark Mark squirming as the serpent comes to life.

Harry releases his hold on the shadow and smiles a little as he continues back to his room. So that’s what Voldemort is getting out of this tournament, the chance to recruit students. It seems he’s forgiven Karkaroff, who Aethelred described as a traitor, enough to use him.

Harry is pleased to have figured it out.

*

Harry marks the Weasley twins on the new moon of December, which luckily is before the Christmas holidays. Harry thought they would joke and laugh their way through the process, which would give him a chance to cut it short. Honestly, being bound to Theodore is enough for him.

But the twins are quiet and serious about the whole process, other than laughing when Harry actually marks them because that apparently tickles. Harry shakes his head. He really doesn’t need the painkilling potion after all, at least not as long as he doesn’t mark someone who is unwilling.

He recalls the rumors that no one could take the Dark Mark unwillingly. Now he understands why.

Fred and George both receive the lightning bolt with the wolf high on the backs of their shoulders, where shirts and their hair can cover it. It would have been safer to mark them on the back of the neck, like Theodore, but Harry can’t bear to. He’s possessive of that bond and his first vassal, and they’re going to bear marks that are similar but not the same.

Fred and George examine each other when the ritual is done, and smile at Harry. Harry feels the bonds snap into place. It is less intense than it is with Theodore, to his relief, but he can still feel a general sense of their direction and distance. He would know if they were in danger, that’s certain.

It’s a relief. It makes the protection part of the bond much less onerous than it would have been otherwise.

“Now, our Lordship sir,” Fred says, when both the twins are satisfied with their marks and have adjusted to the apparent feeling of Harry’s magic, “will you tell us what the secret is to your appearing and disappearing around the school like that?”

“Please please please please please please,” George adds, fluttering his eyelashes.

Harry sighs for effect. “Very well. But it will be hints at first, while I see if you’re smart enough to figure this out.” The twins nod eagerly, probably more thrilled than they would have been if Harry just told them outright. “Whenever I move around the school, I do it through the use of something nearby. I can’t do it everywhere in the school because not all places are the same. Think carefully about it, and you’ll find out.”

George looks at him. “Through doors?”

Harry laughs before he can stop himself, one of the few times he’s done that when he’s not with Theodore, and the twins clap their hands together before Fred says, “Not through _doors_ , don’t be so obvious, Forge.”

“But the school doesn’t have doors everywhere!”

“Well, we can probably remove stone from the list.”

“And floors!”

“I don’t know, think about some of those moving staircases…”

Harry finds himself relaxing as he listens to their ridiculous speculations. It occurs to him that having the twins around might be good for both him and some of his other—friends, vassals, whatever. Theodore is serious, Luna is often off in her own little world, and Dean’s sense of humor is more like that of the other Gryffindors and thus not all that comprehensible to Harry or Theodore.

But the twins will lighten the mood.

*

As he becomes more fully involved in his research to destroy Dementors, Harry’s mood could use lightening.

He loathes them more and more the more he learns. No one knows for sure whether Dementors were created by some ancient wizard and then used by modern wizards to guard that bloody prison, or whether they’re a kind of natural creature that modern wizards offered a bargain to, and of course none of the books are specifically about their effect on shadow magic, but Harry can read around the edges. Dementors eat souls. That means they foul the places where soul-bearing creatures walk. The atmosphere around Azkaban is reportedly unbearable for both prisoners and guards, which is why prisoners usually go insane and guards are rotated in and out on a regular basis.

It would make sense for them to foul the shadows the same way, even if soul-bearing creatures who can use shadows are extremely rare.

There’s also distressingly little information about how to _kill_ Dementors. Patronuses drive them away or hold them at bay, but that’s all. There are a few, conflicting reports of killing. Harry discounts all of them as he reads them. Among other things, Gilderoy bloody Lockhart is the source for a few of them.

But then Harry finds a single, solitary sentence in a book that’s mostly about how to deal with Dark creatures in general, similar to the single sentence about shadow magic that he found in the book on Horcruxes.

_Dementors feed on both memories and souls, although they are most notorious for their soul-stealing Kiss._

Harry knows the sentence is important, but not exactly how. He begins to wrestle with it in the privacy of his brain, and he wrestles with it on the walk back from the library—for once, he doesn’t leap through the shadows to make it shorter—and he wrestles with it as he flops down on the couch in the Slytherin common room in front of the fire and stares at the flames.

“My lord.”

Theodore’s voice is soft and respectful. He doesn’t call Harry that loudly in front of the other students anymore, but Harry knows that has a lot more to do with what they might hear in his voice when he does it and nothing to do with the death of his conviction.

 _Never that,_ Harry thinks as he smiles at Theodore, and leans over to kiss him. They got a few stares for that, too, but not many. Theodore pointed out when Harry asked that most of the Slytherins assumed they were already dating, since they spend so much time together.

Sometimes Harry assumes he will never understand people, but then he realizes he understands Theodore and Fred and George and Dean and Luna, and that’s really enough, and he becomes cheerful again.

“Tell me what you’re worrying about,” Theodore says, unceremoniously shoving Harry’s legs out of his way so he can also sit down on the couch. In some ways, he treats Harry more casually now than he did before he was marked, probably because he knows that their bond will tell Harry what he really feels. It’s nice.

“A line to kill Dementors,” Harry says, bringing up their favorite privacy charm around them. “Or rather, I think it has relevance. Hell, I _know_ it has relevance. I just can’t figure it out, and my brain won’t let it go.”

“Tell me what it is.”

Harry tells him about the difference between eating memories and eating souls, and Theodore spends a second tapping his fingers on the couch arm before he says, “It’s two different methods of eating, right?”

Harry raises his eyebrows. “I _did_ just say that.”

Theodore ignores his tone. “But when they eat souls, it’s obvious how they do it. They bend down and Kiss someone, and that sucks up the soul through their mouth. It’s not as obvious how they eat memories. Just being near someone can apparently do it, since they don’t have to Kiss all of the prisoners of Azkaban, or go into their cells.”

Harry nods slowly, and Theodore gives him a slightly exasperated look and says, “You probably can’t get them to eat anything else through their Kiss. But if you could poison the air or whatever it is that they use to suck up memories…”

“And use something other than guilt, which attracts them,” Harry says, and sits up. He can feel his eyes widening, and his mind leaps and then comes down without telling him where it’s going. “For example, something that relates to the magic I have and that I hate them for having, and if they suck it up and die, that’s _something_.”

“My lord.”

Harry starts badly as he turns around and realizes that Theodore is kneeling on the couch, his head bowed. The privacy charm and the fact that he’s on the couch instead of the ground will keep most people from realizing what he’s doing, but it’s still an enormous risk and might tell people what’s really going on. “Theodore!” Harry hisses, yanking at his arm. “What the _fuck_?”

“Will you not tell me what the magic is that you have?” Theodore whispers, not looking up. “I have been patient. I have never asked, even when I suspected. But I think I deserve to know.”

Harry sighs, gets up, and uses the shadows to check that no one else is in their shared bedroom. Then he yanks on Theodore’s arm again. “Come on.”

Theodore follows him in silence that makes the bond that links them vibrate. He’s apparently _very_ content to finally know the source of the secret. Harry, by contrast, is trembling a little, and sweating more than a little.

 _They can’t cage you,_ he reminds himself as he turns around in their bedroom, locks the door, and faces Theodore. _If he hates you, if he reacts negatively to you, you can still retreat through the shadows. You can come back just when your vassals are threatened, and that will be enough._

But he doesn’t _want_ to, that’s the hell of it. The bonds that link his vassals to him also tie him to them. He doesn’t want to leave them. And he doesn’t want to leave Hogwarts with its library that might still give him important clues about how to use his shadow magic and destroy Dementors.

Facing Theodore’s shining expectation, Harry pulls shadow to him and lets it pool in his palms, the way he did right before he cost Luna’s bully her sanity. Theodore’s mouth opens slightly, and his eyes widen.

“I can use shadows in any way I wish,” Harry says quietly. “To spy, to travel, to blind people. Sometimes I attack people with them, but not often. It’s really obvious. And if you _tell anyone_ , I am going to leave forever, Theodore. I mean that.”

Theodore stares at him still, not moving, mouth still the same, eyes still the same, but bond vibrating in an odd way. Harry forces himself to face it. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do if Theodore is afraid of him.

Theodore is not afraid of him. Theodore is shaking with desire.

Harry blinks and lets the shadow go. “Oh,” he says, and nothing else, because he doesn’t know what to do.

Theodore settles it for him, seizing him and snogging his face off. They don’t stop until their roommates impatiently hammer on the door, demanding that it be unlocked so they can take showers and go to bed.

And Harry lies there with his mind whirling and his smile probably looking stupid and his brain buzzing.

He has someone to _share_ things with.

Once, he thought he would never have that, and he was okay with it. Now he never wants to give Theodore up.

*

Harry marks Dean at January’s second new moon, since Harry and Theodore both went to the Nott house to avoid the bustle of the Yule Ball even though Dean stayed at Hogwarts. Dean accepts the mark with a laugh like Fred and George’s, then shakes his arm a little and conjures a mirror to study the wolf and the lightning bolt. “It tickles a bit. Why a wolf?”

“One of the illusions I used to torment Malfoy,” Harry says with a grin. Illusions is a good explanation for his shadow magic if he has to mention something specific, and Dean apparently heard about that, because he nods.

But he doesn’t move away even when the bond settles between them and they’re more used to carrying the weight, like an iron crown around their heads. Dean hesitates and hesitates, and Harry finally sighs as he cleans up the last remnants of their ritual circle of flattened grass and asks, “What is it?”

“Neville would like to be marked.”

Harry snaps straight before he thinks about it, his wand aimed at Dean. The shadows at his feet are trembling as well, though with only _Lumos_ charms lighting the area, it’s not noticeable. Dean raises his hands. “It’s okay, Harry. Really. I didn’t tell him. He listened and figured it out and—I think he maybe saw one of the twins’ marks. It’s impressive that he figured it out in such a short period of time, don’t you think?”

“It’s bloody _concerning_ is what it is,” Harry snaps back. His paranoia is already turning outwards, wondering what he missed. What if someone else slips up? What if Dumbledore or Voldemort figures out what he’s doing? It’s true that Theodore is so quiet in Slytherin that almost no one pays attention to him and almost everyone gives Harry a wide berth, but—

“Harry. My lord. I promise, it’s all right.” Dean grabs his wand hand and forces it down. “Neville didn’t tell me everything, but he said that’s because he wants to talk to you. And he told me that he’ll accept a Memory Charm if you determine that’s necessary.”

Harry narrows his eyes. He isn’t good at casting the Memory Charm. But there’s the possibility of losing Longbottom in shadows. That makes him calm enough to listen to what Dean is proposing. “Why does he want to be marked?”

Dean gives him a sharp glance. “You’ve never noticed how the other Gryffindors bully him?”

“No. I thought only the Slytherins did.”

Dean shakes his head. “I think it’s been worse this year. He asked Ginny Weasley to the Yule Ball, and she did go with him, but that made Ron upset. And people are getting tired of the way he messes up in Potion and loses Gryffindor points all the time. They’d just about decided it was Neville’s fault and not Snape’s before the holidays.”

Harry puts his hand over his face. Yes, more minions, he should have realized. “It’s going to be several bloody months before I can trust him enough to mark him, you realize that? I’ll have to know _everything_ about how he found out and seal the leak so it can’t happen again. I’m going to—why the hell are you smiling?”

“Because you still gave him his protection when he asked for it. You’ll protect a lot more people than even you assumed. That shows that Neville was right to ask.”

“Most people’s response to being bullied is not to _swear to a Dark Lord_.”

“I don’t know that you’re so much Dark as in-between.” Dean shrugs, unconcerned. “I’ll tell Neville in the morning, and I’ll make sure that we’re in a place where no one’s listening. Thank you, my lord.”

Harry nods sharply back and sweeps up to the school. At least he can probably put off his marking until after the end of the school year. He doesn’t know Longbottom at all well, and really only remembers him as Malfoy’s victim from their first year and someone who lurked on the outside of the Gryffindor group who thought he was the Heir of Slytherin.

_He’ll have to prove himself._

It’s only later that night, lying in bed with his lips tingling from Theodore’s kisses, that Harry realizes even giving Longbottom that chance is more than he would have done a year ago. He scowls into the darkness.

*

As it turns out, Neville did indeed figure out the truth from seeing George’s mark and realizing that the wolf looked like the one Harry used to save him in first year. So that’s mainly Harry’s fault. At least he takes the wand-vow to keep things to himself without prompting.

But Harry still hasn’t been able to trust him enough to mark him when the Third Task of the Tournament comes, and with it, a sudden burst of green light that transforms Harry’s plans for the summer entirely.

Cedric Diggory, the Hogwarts Champion, lands on the grass holding the Tri-Wizard Cup and very obviously dead, his neck twisted back and his mouth open as he gapes at the sky. He’s also holding a small token that bursts as people begin to scream, and the Dark Mark rises into the sky in lurid green above his body.

Voldemort’s voice speaks from the Mark, which Harry thinks is a neat trick. “ _Everyone who does not join me will be crushed and bow,_ ” he says, his voice a long hiss just on the edge of Parseltongue. Harry thinks he is probably the only one who can hear the extra threat, though. “ _Everyone who is of the blood of Death Eaters who does not bow to me is dead. I am your Lord. I am Lord Voldemort. I have returned._ ”

More screams rise into the sky, but the only sentence that matters to Harry out of those five is the second one. He turns and meets Theodore’s gaze, and Theodore shakes his head slightly, unflinching.

Theodore doesn’t intend to bow to Voldemort. He doesn’t intend to follow his father. Which means they’ll need a different sanctuary than the Nott house for the summer.

And Harry will need to fight Voldemort. Which means at least _pretending_ to cooperate with Dumbledore, and letting the man’s reputation and contacts do some of his networking for him.

Damn it.

*

“I’m glad to see that you’re finally extending your concern to the rest of the world, my boy. I was worried about you when you were Sorted into Slytherin and didn’t seem to care about traumas that the rest of the school was experiencing…”

Dumbledore went on and on that vein for enough time that Harry’s teeth are sunk into his tongue by the time he comes back to the Slytherin bedroom. Theodore is waiting for him. He reaches out and draws Harry into his arms. This close, Harry can touch his mark, and their bond can softly soothe him.

“We’re going to one of Dumbledore’s safehouses?” Theodore asks into his ear.

Harry nods and leans hard on his vassal. God, he didn’t want this. He would prefer to scarper through the shadows with Theodore and live in Knockturn Alley or some other place where they could be independent. But he was right about Dumbledore thinking the Boy-Who-Lived is more important now than ever. They would have been hunted. And Aethelred’s house isn’t safe now and never will be again.

“We’ll make it,” Theodore says into his ear, and strokes his hands through Harry’s hair. “We always do.”

That makes Harry a little more cheerful. Yes, that’s true. So far they’ve survived Harry’s own indifference and his circle of vassals expanding and capturing Pettigrew and the revelation of Harry’s shadow magic and Voldemort’s resurrection. They’re going to get through this, too.

“Dumbledore was unhappy when I told him that you were coming with me and that’s not negotiable,” Harry adds, treasuring that one thing from the meeting that made him smile. “I think he wants to surround me with Gryffindors and charm me into caring about them.”

“He’ll get used to disappointment. He’s had more than a hundred years to, after all.”

Harry laughs, and closes his eyes. It feels good to lean on Theodore, for once.

*

It turns out that the safehouse Dumbledore takes them to for the summer belongs to none other than Sirius Black, who let Pettigrew escape because he’s an _idiot_. But Dumbledore is hiding him because he belongs to Dumbledore’s Order of the Phoenix, and he has an enormous house that’s filled with lovely shadows and a library with more interesting books than Harry can read in a week.

Harry only puts up with him for his house, honestly. Black is intent on reclaiming his place as Harry’s godfather, and that means inundating him with stories about his parents and telling him he should spend more time around Gryffindors and presenting him with gifts in red and gold colors and telling Harry earnestly that the littlest Weasley fancies him.

“So?” Harry asks blankly when Black tells him that last. They’re eating breakfast in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place. The old house-elf who works here seems to spend a lot of time staring at Harry, but it results in good service for him and Theodore, which is fine with Harry. In fact, things would be fine here in general if not for Black and the younger Weasleys who cluster in corners and whisper about him. Granger is here, too, for some reason. Harry supposes she was closer friends with the Weasleys and more under Dumbledore’s sway than he thought.

“So, I’m just saying. Your dad married a beautiful red-haired woman. You might, too.” Black nudges Harry’s ribs in what might be the most obnoxious touch he’s ever felt.

“Er, no,” Harry says, and eats the bacon that Kreacher plops in front of him.

“You don’t know what’s going to happen in the future,” Granger says from across the table. She gives the youngest Weasley an encouraging smile.

“I know what’s happening now,” Harry counters, “which is that I have a fit dark-haired boyfriend.” He’s glad to watch the residual tension completely dissipate from Theodore’s tight shoulders. He smiles at him.

“What?”

It seems like everyone says that at once, although it’s more a bellow from Black and a squeak from Weasley. Harry sighs, rolls his eyes, and leans across the table to kiss Theodore. He enjoys it, and enjoys the pale faces and dropped jaws he gets even more.

“I’m surprised that you didn’t know that,” he adds, as he goes back to his breakfast. “Most of Slytherin was gossiping about it last year.”

“Like we listen to what _Slytherins_ say,” mutters the Weasley whose name Harry has forgotten again. Right, Ron.

Harry turns his smile on him. “Then nothing I say can possibly matter to you, either.”

Weasley promptly babbles something about how he’s different, and Harry sighs. He’s willing to do some public appearances as the Boy-Who-Lived and attend Order strategy meetings as payment for the safe housing during the summer. But it seems that Dumbledore and the Weasleys and Black all want more than that.

They want him to act more like a Gryffindor. They want him to be the perfect hero that Harry’s never been and which they didn’t even dare demand of him for the last few years. They want him to abandon Theodore and his independent ways.

They want him to be his parents.

Harry realizes that when Black corners him in the library one day when he’s reading about Dementors. It’s more than fascinating reading; it’s giving Harry all sorts of new information about how he might kill them. He’s taking busy notes when Black plops down in the chair across from him and stares at him.

“What?” Harry asks over the top of his book.

“Your father wouldn’t have been caught dead reading a book like this.”

“I hope he would be happy that I’m more informed than he was.”

Black sags into his chair. “You don’t care about them at all, do you?” he whispers. “James and Lily? I thought Albus was exaggerating when he told me how cold you were, but he wasn’t.”

“Exactly what is left for me to care about? No one told me about them before I arrived at Hogwarts. I didn’t even know my father’s first name before then. Then people gave me some comparisons, but always negative ones. That my parents were Gryffindors and would be disappointed in me. That they were heroes and I’m not. That my parents were friends to everything that breathed and I’m not. I have no desire to be like them. I survived on my own. All they did was protect me once, and then die.”

Black is gaping at him by the time he finishes. Harry shrugs at him and keeps writing down notes on Dementors.

“I’m your godfather,” Black whispers. “I didn’t know—when you sent me Peter, I thought you liked me and you’d figured out I was innocent.”

“I figured out you were innocent. But I thought you wouldn’t be able to use Pettigrew for the best. And I see I was right.”

“Then why didn’t you tell Dumbledore and figure out a way to live with me?”

“Why didn’t you? There’s only one chronological adult in this room, and it’s not me.”

Black looks away. “After I messed up and Peter escaped, then it would have been too dangerous for me to try and claim you.”

“And it was probably convenient for you. After all, I’m not the godson you wanted. I’m a Slytherin. I don’t care about my parents’ legacy. I never wrote to you and asked for stories about them.”

“I don’t—Harry, if you had just been _different_!” Black bursts out. “It could all have been so different!”

“I know. For example, if you had cared to write to me at some point and inform me that you were my godfather instead of leaving me to find that out from other people. Or if you had cared as much about writing to me as you did about capturing Pettigrew.”

Black gives him a whipped look and trots out of the room with his head lowered. Harry shakes his head and continues his notes. It’s not his fault that Black won’t make any effort to get past his prejudices. He hasn’t even apologized for putting Pettigrew in front of all else, and then _losing_ him. Honestly, Harry gave him vengeance or justice gift-wrapped in a cage and he threw it away.

There’s no helping some people.

*

It’s easier when Fred and George join them in Grimmauld Place. Without even being asked, they direct Black’s attention away from Harry, and sometimes prank their younger siblings when they’re involved in trying to make Harry behave like a Gryffindor, or Granger when she’s involved in self-righteous lecturing. Harry tells them once that they don’t have to.

“We can’t let our lord suffer, can we, George? Exactly what kind of minions would we be?”

“ _Terrible_ minions. We have a reputation to uphold! For the sake of all minions everywhere!”

Nothing Harry can say dissuades them, so in the end he gives in and leaves them to it. They’re having lots of fun anyway.

Mrs. Weasley won’t let Harry and Theodore share a room when she finds out that they’re boyfriends, despite them pointing out that they share a room all year round at Hogwarts anyway. So Theodore sneaks in at night to talk about their plans with regards to Dementors and Voldemort, and sometimes falls asleep in Harry’s bed. He sneaks out again before anyone can come in in the morning, despite how hard they try to figure out the counter to the locking spell Harry has put on the door.

“Sometimes I want to lead them into the shadows and leave them to suffer,” Harry says darkly after one evening when everyone ganged up on him for not being exactly like the parents he has exactly one memory of.

“Not worth it, my lord.” Theodore lies with his head on Harry’s outstretched legs, his eyes closed. “Leave them to their idiocy. You can employ your powers to better effect.”

Harry grins, remembering the discovery he made today and hasn’t yet told Theodore about. “You’re right. I’ve figured out how to use shadows to poison the Dementors.”

“Tell me.” Theodore turns his head but doesn’t sit up. Harry is confident that he has his full attention anyway.

“It wouldn’t work without my other magic,” Harry admits. He lifts his hand and hisses at the same time. Shadow forms into several serpents around him. Cobras with their flared hoods, kraits small and dangerous, a black mamba that has a darker shadow around its throat to represent its threat display. Harry strokes their heads, feeling coolness and slight solidity under his fingers. “I’ll put them into shadows the Dementors are going to walk through.”

Theodore looks back and forth between the snakes. That he’s utterly fearless pleases Harry greatly. “Can you put them into shadows and actually have them do anything, though? I thought you said Dementors made shadows useless for you.”

“Yes, but only after they’ve walked through them. I had no problem manipulating shadows on the train ride before third year until after they’d passed me. I intend to make these snakes—stronger since they’re based on Parseltongue magic as well as shadows—into the shadows _before_ Dementors pass through, to wait for them. They’ll strike and poison them then.”

“It should work?”

“It should.”

“I’m so glad that I’ve chosen a genius for my lord.”

Harry puts his book aside and starts snogging Theodore, satisfied that they’re on their way. That he’ll have to go to Azkaban or capture a Dementor otherwise to test his theories is left unsaid. For right now, he wants to concentrate on the shape of Theodore’s shoulders under his hands.

*

“The Ministry may be refusing to acknowledge Voldemort’s return, calling it a prank. But I have beside me the Boy-Who-Lived himself, who has personal knowledge of Voldemort’s tactics.”

Harry hides a sigh as he stands at Dumbledore’s side on the little platform that the Minister was standing on a few minutes ago. Dumbledore arrived and promptly took over this press conference, announcing that Voldemort has come back and that the incident at the Tournament with Diggory’s death isn’t a prank.

Harry _knows_ it isn’t a prank. But Dumbledore is handling the crowd all wrong. They’re flinching at Voldemort’s name and they’re muttering about the fact that he doesn’t have any proof except Diggory’s death and the word of a few former Death Eaters.

Harry wouldn’t care, except it might taint his own name and chances now that he’s associated with Dumbledore.

Then Dumbledore steps aside and gestures him forwards, and Harry steps up to the podium. There’s a hovering sphere there that applies a _Sonorus_ Charm to the voice of whoever speaks into it. Harry says, “Um, hi.” He ducks his head and rubs his hand over his scar.

This is his tactic, which he, Theodore, Fred, and George developed over some intense discussions. He’s going to appear innocent and confused and embarrassed, and if people think he’s a tool of Dumbledore, that’s fine with Harry. _Open_ rebellion has never been something he’s been interested in.

Cameras flash, and a woman with blonde hair piled up on her head asks, “Why haven’t you said something open about fighting Voldemort before now?”

“Um, because I didn’t know he was back?” Harry fidgets and casts a glance at Dumbledore as if for reassurance. “I mean, I believe he’s back now. I was there when he made that announcement right above poor Cedric’s body.” He lowers his voice, but of course everyone can still hear, and they look transfixed. “I recognized that voice. From my oldest memory. The one I hear when Dementors are nearby.”

“What’s that memory?” It’s an older woman Harry believes reports for _Witch Weekly_ , her voice so soft it’s breathless.

“I hear someone telling my mother to stand aside, and then my mum screaming.”

A sigh runs around the audience. Harry wants to smile, though of course he doesn’t. He has them.

“I recognized his voice,” Harry continues, and lets a small tremor enter his words. “So I know he’s back. I think you should believe Professor Dumbledore. Voldemort’s horrifying and he’s powerful, and we all need to band together to fight him.” He nods and steps back before someone else can ask another question.

Dumbledore watches him with narrowed eyes for the rest of the day. Of course, Harry has done exactly as Dumbledore asked in one sense. He’s supported his public position that Voldemort is back, and contradicted the Ministry.

But he hasn’t acted the heroic part that Dumbledore wanted him to act.

It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t forgive Harry, though. Harry isn’t inclined to forgive, either.

*

They have a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher that year, of course, since Moody was paranoid enough to curse the wrong person at last and end up in Azkaban. Her name is Dolores Umbridge, and she simpers and talks constantly about how they don’t need spells to defend themselves, that the Ministry is enough.

She also sends Dementors after him when they’ve been back to Hogwarts for a fortnight.

Harry knew she would. He overheard her discussing the need for the appropriate paperwork, and threatening to reveal some secret she holds, with a Ministry flunky through her fire. Shadows fires throw are always so useful to hide in.

Harry is going to make Umbridge pay later, of course, but for right now, he’s mainly excited to test his shadow-snakes on the Dementors. He makes sure that he’s out on the Quidditch pitch in the evening after Umbridge was discussing it, the shadows absolutely full of cobras and kraits created from Parseltongue.

Theodore, Fred, and George are hiding out of sight. Fred and George don’t know exactly what he’s doing, but they know he plans to ambush Dementors somehow, and they’re excited to be part of it. They’ll intervene if something goes drastically wrong.

Harry grins as he feels the cold approaching. He steps into the glow of the moon, making himself visible. Around him, the shadows at his feet seethe and boil. Harry knows some of them will be useless after the Dementors appear, but it’s one reason he’s doing this confrontation out here. He rarely comes to the Quidditch pitch or has a reason to escape from it, after all.

The lead Dementor comes sweeping towards him. Harry remains poised to leap if he needs to, but he also watches as intently as a lover for the moment that the edge of the Dementor’s robe touches the shadow where he’s concealed a snake.

It happens. A churning grey shape lunges forwards, and the Dementor screams in a thin, high-pitched voice at the edge of hearing, like a dying bat.

Harry laughs aloud as he watches more snakes manifest, all of them biting and tearing loose pieces of what appear to be the Dementor’s cloak and hood. For a moment, he sees a gaping skull floating in the air as its garments—really shadows it’s corrupted—are stripped away. Then a cobra bites that, and the skull fades away.

The second Dementor circles around to the rear. That’s not a help, either, considering that Harry’s trapped every single shadow in sight. It ends up rolling a few centimeters above the pitch while writhing bodies cover it. A krait is the one who has the honor of diving beneath its hood and making everything fade at once this time. Harry reckons this one was simply overwhelmed with the venom.

The shadows fade back into regularity, all trace of cold gone. The ones that stay are clean, and his. Harry laughs aloud.

“If I may say so, Your Lordship, sir, that was a _proper_ maniacal laugh,” Fred says approvingly from the edge of the lake where they’re concealed.

“Takes practice, that,” George adds.

Theodore stands up and gives him a slight bow and the smile that is all the approval Harry needs.

*

Neville’s marking is a quiet thing, done on October’s new moon. Harry watches as the lightning bolt and wolf form, hearing Neville’s breath catch. The wolf is a little larger than it is on the others, but it matters more to Neville, so that’s not unusual.

“Thank you,” Neville says, standing up and bowing when everything is done. The bond is lighter and more fragile than the one Harry shares with his other vassals, but he and Neville are pretty new to each other. That makes sense. “If—Dean didn’t tell me. If I want to recruit other people for you, how do I tell them about this?”

Harry points one finger at him. “You don’t recruit others for me. Dean told me about you, but you’d already figured out part of it on your own. I don’t need any more followers.”

“But how are you going to be a Dark Lord if you don’t have more followers than us?” Neville flinches a little when Harry glares at him, but goes on stubbornly. “I m-mean, V-Voldemort had a lot of them.”

“I know, but I’m not Voldemort,” Harry says. Neville’s eyes are big and doubtful. “If there’s someone else who’s being bullied, then you can tell me about them and _I’ll_ approach them. But that’s the only thing you can do.”

“Okay,” Neville says doubtfully.

Harry shakes his head and goes his way. He doesn’t understand why wizards are always wanting to fling themselves at others’ feet and follow them around. Yes, most people don’t have Harry’s shadow magic because most people aren’t Horcruxes, but they could become strong and lead themselves if they _wanted_ to. Theodore and Dean both picked up the Shield Charm well. Fred and George learned the Patronus when Harry taught it to them.

Most wizards are more powerful than they think, Harry decides. They just don’t want to use their gifts.

Maybe laziness and not stupidity is the besetting fault of the wizarding world.

*

Ron demands angrily if Neville is still dating his sister, and Neville says he isn’t. But Ron doesn’t believe him and yells at Neville and tells him he’s an idiot.

Harry learned a useful fact about Ron during the weeks they stayed at Grimmauld Place together and Ron utterly failed to persuade him to become a hero. Harry flicks through shadows into the Gryffindor fifth-year boys’ bedroom—easier to find than it should be thanks to his connection to Neville’s mark—and releases a privacy ward and a box of real spiders on Ron’s bed.

Ron screams hysterically and swats at them, but they are too small and moving too fast, and they climb all over him and bite him and bite him. Harry smiles a little. By themselves, the bites don’t hurt, but multiplied like that? Their venom is going to make Ron sick for a week.

By the time Ron is sobbing and almost catatonic with panic, Harry judges it enough. He gathers up the spiders with a simple Net Charm and herds them back into the box, then asks from his invisible corner by the shadow of Ron’s bedpost, “Are you going to tease Neville alone?”

“Yes! I _promise_!”

“Because next time it won’t be a few spider bites.”

“I promise! You wanker, whoever you are!”

Harry vanishes into shadows without speaking again, allowing Ron the last word. At least he believes the boy about not harassing Neville again. He seems bright enough to learn his lesson the first time, unlike Amanda Serling.

Neville tells him the next morning, in a hushed voice on the way to breakfast, that Ron actually _apologized_ for yelling at him and calling him an idiot. He’s watching Harry with worshipful eyes.

He doesn’t ask what Harry did to make Ron stop, and Harry doesn’t volunteer it. Poor Neville is gentle and soft in a way that almost none of the others are. He doesn’t need to know.

*

Harry is planning his revenge on Umbridge and Dumbledore, but surprisingly, it’s Voldemort who moves first and forces Harry to respond.

It’s almost Christmas holiday of fifth year, and Harry is not really looking forward to going to Grimmauld Place. Remus Lupin wrote to him the other day, revealing that, like Black, he was one of the Potters’ closest friends and wants to see Harry again and get to know him. The fact that he didn’t say anything about that during third year isn’t something Harry is going to forget.

Neither of them want _him_ , Harry Potter, shadow mage and boyfriend of Theodore, Slytherin and apparently budding Dark Lord, necessary opponent of Voldemort and destroyer of Dementors. They want his parents back again.

Harry is brooding over that when Theodore begins to scream from down the Slytherin table.

Harry is on his feet so fast that for a blinding instant he thinks he may have flowed through a shadow. But he realizes it’s not so, and he sprints to Theodore, who has demanded to sit apart from Harry for a few days in an attempt to recruit some of the other Slytherins to their side.

A large black owl dropped a letter in front of him a moment ago, but that doesn’t surprise Harry. Theodore has received almost daily communications from his father demanding that he return and join Voldemort.

This time, the letter was cursed. Harry sees the deep black curse spreading, along with boils, up both of Theodore’s hands to his arms, and he almost drops into panic as blind as Ron’s thrashing when he saw the spiders. But then he reaches out and cups a hand around Theodore’s neck, cradling his mark, and forces Theodore’s magic to listen to him.

Part of the lordship ritual involved linking their magic together. Harry never visualized using it this way, but he _pushes_ now, hurling waves of pure power at the curse, forcing Theodore’s body to remember what it’s like to be healthy and strong.

Together, they stop the curse from advancing. Then they force it back down Theodore’s hands into the letter again. Harry watches Theodore’s skin turn pink again and the boils fade with a relief that makes him want to pant.

Then the letter is there glowing red, and with Voldemort’s signature clearly visible at the bottom, and Harry’s relief turns into rage.

He gestures with one hand, and because he’s still cupping Theodore’s mark, the letter roars into the air like a comet, powered by both their magic. It turns into a whirling pinwheel of fire over the heads of the cowering students, rent apart. For a second, lurid green magic flickers around the edges of the ashes. No doubt Voldemort intended to imprint a floating mark in the air over Theodore’s body the way he did with Diggory.

Everyone watches as Harry’s magic—they all think it is Harry’s magic alone, not the magic of Harry and Theodore and their lordship bond combined— _eats_ the green power of Voldemort’s Dark Mark in a burst of silver.

Harry is the only one who feels relief that the color is silver and not grey, the color of shadows.

He slumps on the seat next to Theodore when he’s done. Theodore is watching him with very little less than the worship Neville gave him earlier, but Harry glares at him, and Theodore retreats from it, nodding.

“Thank you, my lord,” he whispers nevertheless.

Three things happen as a result of the letter exploding.

First, Dumbledore steps up his efforts to convince people that Harry Potter is a great warrior on the side of right and good. He requires Harry to come to his office more often for “chats” and finally shares a few of the things that the Order of the Phoenix is doing with him. It turns out that most of them are guarding a prophecy in the Department of Mysteries. A prophecy that concerns him and Voldemort.

Harry would have exploded in laughter if he hadn’t honestly already recognized that the reason Voldemort had gone after him in the first place was going to be something ridiculous.

Second, Harry determines his revenge on Voldemort. He isn’t going to kill him. That would require killing the Horcrux inside Harry, and require giving up his shadow magic at best and probably dying himself at worst, and no, thank you. But the man’s survival when he tried to kill Harry as a baby and failed means that he must have had at least one Horcrux before then, and probably more. Harry is going to find and destroy them. Then he’ll destroy Voldemort’s main body and confine his spirit in a trap for the rest of eternity, aware and screaming but unable to leave.

It’s what he deserves, for trying to touch Theodore.

Third, suddenly Harry has recruits who are coming to him on their own, wanting to serve a man of such immense power, not people who have come in through anything Dean or Neville or Theodore or the twins have said.

It’s utterly maddening.

*

But Harry also recognizes that his goals are going to need manpower. So he interrogates the people who quietly offer, swears them to wand-vows, and has the twins use some of their memory-removing potions—at which they’re scarily good—on those who turn out to be either untrustworthy or unwilling to follow someone “Dark.”

He marks Millicent Bulstrode, Pansy Parkinson, and Daphne Greengrass in February. All of them are Slytherins whose families were never that close to Voldemort, or only pretended to be to avoid his attention during the first war. And they were more than half-listening to Theodore already. Harry offers them the same deal he did the twins: protection and secrets in exchange for using their talents when he wants them to on various people. Millicent is particularly enthusiastic about this, since even fellow Slytherins taunt her as a half-blood.

Harry has to shake his head at people sometimes. Have none of them ever _noticed_ that Millicent makes herself the master of their secrets while pretending to be as dumb as Crabbe and Goyle actually are? Have none of them _seen_ that Daphne prattles and gossips while her sharp eyes watch everyone around her, and she’s the first one to know when a prefect is coming around a corner or when a professor is in a bad mood? Have none of them _realized_ that Pansy flirts with all the boys and makes them think of her as harmless while she gets their protection against girls in other Houses?

The answer is no, because of course it is.

Harry sighs, and continues on.

*

In March, Harry marks his first Hufflepuffs, Justin Finch-Fletchley and Wayne Hopkins. It’s a bit of a surprise since neither of them are pure-bloods and they’ve also never been close to Harry; he couldn’t actually remember their first names, either, no more than he could remember Ron’s. But Justin explains it to him while he’s still shuddering a little from the coldness of the bond settling into his mind.

“I’m Muggleborn,” he says quietly, leaning back on his heels to look up into Harry’s eyes. “I know that Voldemort is going to come for me, and maybe my parents, and I suspect that there are students here in the school who would gladly see me dead, too. This way, I get a bit of protection.”

Wayne is a half-blood, but besides having a Muggle father, he has a stutter. That causes enough scorn from some of the people in the school, and constant comparisons of him to Quirrell even four years later, that he came in the minute Harry confirmed that he’ll protect people from bullies.

“It’s w-weird, but people here are a lot worse th-than even the Muggle k-kids I went to school with when I was l-little,” he whispers as he rubs his hand over his wolf and lightning bolt. “I don’t know why.”

Harry knows why. The wizarding world hates difference, or at least difference that doesn’t fit into neat little boxes. They’re fine with Gryffindors and Slytherins being different from each other, but even in those Houses, half-blood Slytherins and shy Gryffindors get bullied. And look at Ravenclaw, House of the “smart,” and their prejudice against Luna. Hufflepuffs are more loyal to each other, so few of them seem to be bullied, but there are the popular and unpopular ones, like any other place, and enough pure-bloods at the top of the House’s hierarchy to push Muggleborns to the bottom.

“Are you going to create a world of equality and justice for everyone?” was one of the first questions Justin asked Harry.

“No.” Harry saw no reason not to be honest. Justin was already under a wand-vow at that point. “People who touched someone under my protection are never going to be equal to those who are.”

And Justin smiled, and said, “Good.”

*

April sees his first marked Ravenclaws. Luna still doesn’t want to be marked—she says it would interfere with her connection to the Heliopaths—but she’s been an ambassador in her own way. At the very least, people can notice that she’s close to him and he’s powerful, and reason that they’d like that protection, too.

That’s the motivation behind Terry Boot joining him. “I watched people be in danger every damn year here,” he tells Harry darkly, rising from where he knelt in the circle of grass under the new moon for the marking ritual. “It was never a Ravenclaw, except sometimes in Quidditch, but it could be any time. And I don’t think being a half-blood or a member of a certain House is going to protect us. And Dumbledore didn’t keep the monster in the Chamber of Secrets out.”

Su Li has been waiting behind Terry while he gets his mark, although, wisely, she doesn’t try to continue the conversation until after she’s received her own. Then she nods fervently at Harry. “Some of the Ravenclaws are coming back from detention with the Umbridge woman with strange marks on their hands. If danger hasn’t come for us before, it’s here now.”

Harry sets his new Ravenclaw vassals promptly to research. He needs to know more about Voldemort, and some idea of what objects he might have chosen for Horcruxes. As relatively neutral in their approach to Slytherins, they can also talk to Slytherins Harry can’t approach, those whose families are close to Voldemort. By hemming and hawing and hinting that they might think about joining Voldemort, Boot and Li can winkle out information on what he’s like.

Harry does turn away one Ravenclaw, Marietta Edgecombe, who couldn’t even get through the initial interview without threatening to betray him if she wasn’t treated well. He sends a few shadows to stalk her while he’s at it.

And then, it’s time to do something about Umbridge.

*

The matter becomes all the more urgent because Harry marks two more people in May, little Colin Creevey from Gryffindor—who particularly hero-worships Harry as the Boy-Who-Lived and did so before his destruction of the letter—and Padma Patil, who was brought in directly by Su Li. They’ve both been scarred by Umbridge’s quill.

Harry waits until she’s alone in her office one evening. Then he deepens and darkens the shadows until only the fire is left, and even that’s struggling. To his combined amusement and disgust, Umbridge is so deep in a report for the Minister that she doesn’t glance up for long minutes.

“Who did this?” Umbridge demands at once, snatching up her wand. She gets up and turns in a circle, as if that would help her locate anything. “Detention and fifty points off for whoever is doing this!”

Harry simply darkens the room further, although he leaves the fire alive to cast shadows. Then he wraps bonds of shadow around Umbridge. He blinds her, as he did with Serling, but he also attaches bands to her fingertips, around her mouth, around her ears, and around her nose. Then he pulls her through shadow to the tank that he has prepared.

He read about an interesting torture technique in the Black library last summer.

Harry dumps her into the tank, located in an obscure corner of the dungeons that not even the Slytherins venture down into. It’s full of lukewarm water that will remain continuously lukewarm thanks to a spell that Harry has attached to Hogwarts’s stones; it can only fail when Hogwarts falls. The water surrounds Umbridge on all sides, thanks to a Bubblehead Charm Harry has wrapped around her head. Other spells fill the water with traces of nutrients that will keep her alive for a long, long time.

The bonds of shadow remain. They will keep her from seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, or touching anything, while the water creates as little sensation as possible on her skin.

Umbridge is going to stay there, and sense nothing ever again.

Harry flickers away through shadow while she tries to scream, and can’t. He’s smiling. He reminds himself to check on her in a month or so, when she’ll probably be insane.

He makes a bet with himself that it’ll be sooner than that.

*

“I want to tell you that I am _terribly_ disappointed in you, my boy.”

Harry widens his eyes innocently. He’s sitting opposite Albus Dumbledore again, on the last day of school. June was a relaxing month, with no one needing to be marked, and Harry was able to concentrate fully on his OWL exams. Theodore teased him that he was probably going to get an Outstanding in Potions and give Snape a heart attack. Harry would like to see it, honestly.

Voldemort hasn’t attacked again, at least not anyone Harry cares about. There are a few rumors of raids in the north, which are annoying, but also far away from any of his vassals’ houses.

And Su Li has come back with useful information from Malfoy, whose aunt was one of Voldemort’s most faithful Death Eaters. Apparently, Voldemort is obsessed with Founders’ artifacts. It gives Harry a wide arena to look, still, but a much narrower one than he started out with.

“Disappointed about what, sir?” Harry asks, when Dumbledore keeps looking at him over his glasses, and says nothing.

Dumbledore sighs. “I can’t prove it, Harry, but I know that you were involved in Madam Umbridge’s disappearance. I had my own plans for taking care of her. Miss Granger and I had spoken about it. And I understand that you haven’t written back to your guardians at all.”

“They’re not my guardians,” Harry says blandly. Black is still a fugitive and Lupin is a werewolf. There’s no way they can claim him. And now that Harry has a healthy network of vassals to help him, he and Theodore don’t even need to spend the summer at Grimmauld Place. They’ll be staying with the Patils for at least a few weeks, and then on to the Parkinsons, and then the Greengrasses, and then probably Wayne’s mother. Harry’s criteria is large houses where they can keep out of the way, and lots of shadows.

“They want to be family to you, Harry.”

“Where were they for fourteen years?” Harry asks. “Lupin had every chance to tell me about his connection to my parents when he was teaching here, but he didn’t. Black had every chance to contact me when he broke out of Azkaban, but he didn’t. They want me to be something I’m not, something I’ll never be.”

Dumbledore doesn’t seem to know what to say to that, but he never does. “You had something to do with Madam Umbridge’s disappearance, Harry.”

Harry merely smiles blandly. So long as he never looks Dumbledore in the eye or speaks a lie, Dumbledore can’t _know_.

“I wish that you would spend more time with Miss Weasley,” Dumbledore says, abruptly changing the subject. “She would greatly enjoy it, and the Weasleys could tell you more about your parents and the war they fought, if you don’t want to spend time with Mr. Black and Mr. Lupin.”

Harry blinks at the non sequitur, and then understands, and chuckles. Dumbledore is looking for some leash to put on him. If Harry falls in love with Ginny Weasley or even just toys with her, Dumbledore is probably thinking, then he’ll be vulnerable. Dumbledore will know where he is and what he’s doing.

“I don’t think it would be kind to lead her on. I’ll never return her affection.”

Dumbledore finally dismisses Harry from his office, as helpless as ever when he can’t actually pin down what Harry did, and because he refuses to believe in what Harry actually is. He would have taken decisive action by now if he thought of Harry as an enemy. As long as Harry dances on the right side of that line, he has nothing to worry about. Dumbledore is too compassionate for his own good.

He meets Theodore outside the Slytherin common room, and indulges in a long kiss. Then he notices the packed trunks at Theodore’s feet. He raises his eyebrows. “We’re leaving now?”

“Malfoy tried to kill me this evening.”

Harry is already turning towards the door of the common room when Theodore grabs his arm. “No, my lord,” he says softly into Harry’s ear. “He was doing it on Voldemort’s orders, I’m sure. He left a cursed necklace near my bed, charmed with the compulsion to put it on. Malfoy isn’t powerful enough to have cast the curse _or_ the compulsion.”

Harry pauses, then nods. “But I should still punish him.”

“ _I_ want that honor, my lord. Later. It will take some time for me to think of a fitting one that can’t be traced.”

Harry nods again, understanding. All of his vassals insist on taking care of their own problems sometimes: the twins with pranks, Dean and his Ravenclaws with vigorous arguments with their Housemates, Neville and Wayne by going unnoticed, Colin by taking some _interesting_ pictures, the Slytherin girls with their well-developed tactics for protecting themselves already, Justin by being aggressively friendly and stereotypically Hufflepuff at enemies until they go away. Theodore hasn’t insisted so far, but when he does, Harry is hardly one to deny him.

“I have a lead on a Founder’s artifact that was supposedly in the possession of the Smith family at one point, and the Patils are acquainted with them,” Harry says, and extends his hand. “Come with me, Theodore?”

Theodore takes his hand, and Harry leads him through the paths of shadow, the sliding grey roads that take so much less time to walk through than covering the same distance in the physical world. They cross what seem to be shimmering silvery moors, wade crashing rivers of grey foam, and step out through an argentine door into a shut-up guest room in the Patil manor that Padma told them about.

Theodore is swallowing hard when Harry turns to look at him. He’s traveled with Harry before, but it’s by far the most extensive journey he’s ever taken. Harry waits patiently for him to recover from it.

Theodore leans against him and kisses him slowly. Harry kisses him back, and they don’t get around to dusting the room or unpacking their trunks for a full twenty minutes.


	7. Lord of Shadows

“Did you see the headline, my lord?”

Harry snorts as he looks at the _Daily Prophet_ that Theodore’s handed him. **BOY-WHO-LIVED MISSING!** it screams across the top of the page. He hands it back to Theodore. “Of course Dumbledore would do that. He doesn’t understand that I can move unseen. Or he probably thinks that I’m Apparating. He’ll try to hinder me as much as he can.”

“It won’t be a concern, my lord?”

Harry shakes his head as he digs into the breakfast the Patil house-elves have delivered for them. Honestly, he thought there might be a problem with the house-elves, but once a few of them saw Padma’s mark, they immediately assumed a mantle of faithful service to Harry and Theodore, too. “Of course we have to be cautious. But cautious isn’t the same as paranoid.”

“The way you think Voldemort is becoming.”

Harry grins. “Yes.”

The research that his Ravenclaws have done and that they’re owling him now—or, in Padma’s case, just coming to their rooms to tell him—is moving better than he ever thought it could. Terry was the one who had the bright idea to search for Slytherin artifacts, since after all Voldemort is supposed to be descended from Salazar Slytherin. It turns out that Slytherin didn’t leave a whole lot of relics. One of them is a golden locket with an emerald snake on the front that should prove recognizable. Another is a huge ring that passed into the Peverell family. Su is working now to trace what happened to the Peverell family after it stopped being called Peverell.

Hufflepuff’s relics seem to be limited, given Padma’s talks with the insufferable Zacharias Smith, to a single golden cup with a badger on the side and large handles. The Smith family once owned it, but it was apparently stolen long ago from one Hepzibah Smith who was accidentally poisoned by her house-elf.

Harry’s eyebrows went up when he heard that. _Right_. The old house-elf is dead now, so there’s no way to prove it, but Harry would be willing to bet his Parseltongue that Voldemort arranged for the murder and also for the house-elf to be blamed.

Which doesn’t tell them where the cup is _now_. But at least they know what they should be looking for.

Ravenclaw’s relics are supposedly more numerous, including a wand held by a Swedish family that claims to be her descendants, but Theodore is the one who points out that Voldemort would hardly be content to let someone else keep his Horcruxes.

“It has to be her diadem,” he tells Harry one lazy morning when Harry’s been refining Dementor-killing plans and Theodore has been reading through the owls that the other vassals have sent in. Wayne’s mother turned out to have a distant relation to the Peverells, too, which has made that part of the research a little easier. “That’s her most famous relic and the most long-lost. Lost almost a thousand years ago, in fact.”

“Then how would Voldemort find it?”

“You know how clever he was, my lord. Besides, he might have asked the Grey Lady.”

“The who?”

Theodore rolls over and gives him an amused look. “My lord, you are truly not that observant of things at Hogwarts that don’t relate to your own concerns. The Ravenclaw ghost, the Grey Lady. She was the daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw in life,” he adds, when Harry just keeps frowning at him. “If she knows where her mother or Ravenclaw’s other descendants disposed of the diadem, she could have told Voldemort.”

Harry shakes his head a little. “How common is the knowledge that she’s Ravenclaw’s daughter? Surely Su and Terry and Padma would have bragged about something like that. And I’m surprised Luna never told me.”

“It’s known, but it’s considered an odd little fact by now.” Theodore shrugs. “She very rarely talks to anyone. I assume a wizard as powerful and as charming as Voldemort was reputed to be could have tricked her into revealing her secrets, however.”

Harry nods thoughtfully. “Then we have to think about places that Voldemort might have hidden the diadem, I suppose.”

*

By the time Harry and Theodore move to Pansy’s house, more research has been added to their pile of notes. Su has tracked the Peverell line to two endings, one in the Potter line and one in the Gaunt family line. The Gaunt family is also supposed to be extinct. But they used to live near a village called Little Hangleton.

One late summer evening—Harry’s birthday, in fact, when he had to repel several owls that contained tracking charms and gifts he doesn’t want—he and Theodore set out for Little Hangleton. They have to go slowly, by Muggle roads and signs, and leap from shadow to shadow like that. It takes almost until nightfall, but there are still enough lights around for Harry to feel confident as he and Theodore home in on the only feeling of magic towards the edge of the village.

The only feeling of magic for miles, Harry realizes, as he regards the small shack in front of him. He wonders if Voldemort chased off any other wizards who used to live here.

“Be careful, my lord,” Theodore murmurs from behind him.

Harry nods and fills the air in front of him with shadow-beasts, mostly snakes. It makes sense to assume that Voldemort might have guarded one of his Horcruxes, if it’s here, with Parseltongue magic.

The shack itself has few spells on it. Instead, they all concentrate into a corner where there’s a loose floorboard. Harry flings shadow-beasts at it and watches as the spells trigger, one by one, destroying his creatures. At least he can resurrect them, and the spells don’t foul the shadows the way Dementors do.

When Harry finally can use a shadow-lion to pry up the floorboard, he isn’t surprised to see a gleaming golden ring with a huge black stone lying there. What _does_ surprise him is the immediate compulsion to put it on.

Harry shakes his head and steps back. He does send a shadow-snake down to retrieve the ring for him. When the snake lifts its head, Harry can make out the symbol scratched on the stone, the circle and line inside a triangle.

Harry frowns. He’s not sure if that symbol would be on all the Horcruxes—but no, his own lightning bolt doesn’t have anything to do with that. He has the snake bring the Horcrux out of the shack. He and Theodore will cooperate in taking off the spells that prevent someone from touching it directly or harming it.

Theodore’s eyes glaze the minute he sees the ring. He starts to step forwards.

“Theodore!” Harry snaps, and flexes his link to Theodore’s magic through his mark.

In a second, his boyfriend stumbles back from the ring, eyes wide and shocked. “I’ve never felt anything like that,” he whispers. “The compulsion that Voldemort put on the necklace was easy to break out of in comparison.”

Harry snarls, reminded of that. Suddenly he doesn’t care about breaking the curse on the ring, not when there’s a chance that the compulsion to put it on could snare Theodore again. He lashes out with his wand and chants the incantation for Fiendfyre.

At the same moment as the fire comes pouring out of his wand, he adds shadow to it. The flames writhe and turn grey, rising into the shapes of lions and leopards with long, jagged teeth and wings sprouting from their backs. Harry tests his control over them and finds them fighting it, but at a low level. For now, he can command them.

“Destroy it,” he says, nodding at the Horcrux.

The shadowfire turns its attention towards the ring. The nearest leopard scoops the ring up and tosses it into the air. Then a lion snatches it and nearly bounds away, but Harry limits its scope, and the lion reluctantly turns back towards the center of the fire. The beasts claw at the Horcrux, snap at it, and wrench at the glittering, etched stone, pulling it out of its golden setting. Harry hears a harsh scream in the distance.

He’s never heard a Horcrux die, but he manages to smile as he watches the ring begin to lose its golden gleam. At the same moment, Theodore relaxes against him, and Harry knows the compulsion to put the ring on must be gone. Harry strokes Theodore’s hair as he watches the first part of his revenge against Voldemort come to fruition.

In the end, the flames destroy everything except the stone. Harry keeps a wary eye on it as it falls to the earth and Harry banishes the Fiendfyre, sending the strength of the shadows that powered it back into the twilight falling around them. He doesn’t know why the stone didn’t melt and fade like the gold of the ring.

He isn’t sure he wants to find out.

Harry is magically exhausted from the shadowfire, so Theodore is the one who uses a simple digging charm to open a little pit in the earth near the shack, and tosses the stone into it. Then they pile dirt and stones on top of it and smooth out the ground so it looks like it was never disturbed, and go back to their (temporary) home.

*

Of all things, it’s a house-elf who brings them their next lead on a Horcrux.

Harry and Theodore lingered longer on the Parkinson estate than they meant to, but Pansy’s parents are at least sympathetic to Harry’s goals, and it’s pleasant to be out in the open, using the library brazenly, and eating meals with people who want to know what he’s going to do in the future rather than concentrating on what they think he should have done in the past. They are packing up, however, when a familiar-looking elf appears in front of them.

Harry puts Theodore behind him with an easy twist of motion, and then frowns as he realizes that he recognizes the elf. “Kreacher?”

The elf nods, eyes fixed on him. “Parkinson house-elves says that you be researching Dark Lord’s evil things.” His voice is low.

Harry stiffens his back for a second. He honestly never thought the house-elves could form a spy network, but of course they do. He and Theodore and the others are going to have to be especially careful not to leave letters lying around or discuss things without privacy wards.

But Kreacher is looking at him expectantly, not with hostility, so Harry says, “Yes. I’ve already destroyed one of them.”

Kreacher lets out a long, shaky breath, and says, “Then Kreacher can be delivering Master Regulus’s locket to you.” He reaches up and untangles a thick golden chain from around his neck.

“Locket?” Theodore asks, but his breathless voice tells Harry that he knows what’s happening as well as Harry does. It’s weird, but hey, this will work.

“Master Regulus gave it to Kreacher and told him to destroy it,” Kreacher murmurs as he extends the locket. With an effort, Harry remembers that Black talked at one point about a younger brother, a Death Eater, who was called Regulus. “Kreacher could not. He has carried it all these years and kept it safe from bad master Black, yes, yes, he has.”

There’s no question the locket is a Horcrux. For one thing, it perfectly matches the description of the Slytherin locket that Harry has already received. For another, the thick, choking aura of Dark magic fills the room. Harry wrinkles his nose with a slight snarl. The only thing he dislikes more is the sense of a Dementor advancing towards him.

“Thank you, Kreacher,” Harry says, and shields his hand with a wrap of shadow before he reaches out to grasp the locket’s chain. Kreacher’s eyes widen at that, and Harry narrows his eyes at him. “I can reach you any time I want, Kreacher. I can destroy you if you speak about this to anyone.”

“Kreacher wants to watch.”

Harry nods, and leads the elf and Theodore out onto a patch of grass that’s concealed from any windows the Parkinsons are likely to look out of. Then Theodore puts up containment spells he learned from his father while Harry lays the locket on the grass and prepares to cast the Fiendfyre spell.

This time, Harry glances at Kreacher before he infuses the flames with shadow. Kreacher just bows low. “Kreacher is being honored to serve Master Harry Potter,” he says. “Kreacher is not telling anyone else.”

Given that Kreacher has apparently kept the secret of the locket for decades, since Regulus’s death, Harry supposes he has to be content with that. He unleashes the shadow again. This time, it takes the form of twisted dragons, and snakes that look more like lizards without legs. Harry still instructs them to devour the locket, and they still resist, but succumb to his will in the end.

This time, the locket opens while it screams, and a figure tries to escape out of it. Harry watches critically. The figure looks a little like him. He supposes it’s part of the Horcrux’s defenses, to try and tempt the person who holds it to treasure it instead of destroy it.

Unluckily for the Horcrux, Harry has no emotional connection to Founders’ artifacts, and thinking of how Voldemort tried to poison and control Theodore would be more than enough to overcome any reluctance to get rid of them. He asks one of the dragons to swallow the figure, which it does happily, and the shriek dies away at the same time as the locket melts into a rush of metal.

Theodore buries the metal the same way they buried the stone from the ring. Harry turns to Kreacher, who has tears running down his face and tracing small clear paths through the grime there. “You can speak to no one of what you’ve seen,” he repeats.

Kreacher kisses Harry’s feet, which is an uncomfortable sensation. “Kreacher knows,” he whimpers. “Kreacher is so grateful to Master Harry Potter for fulfilling Master Regulus’s legacy.”

“Would you happen to know of any other artifacts like this? The Dark Lord has others. We’re trying to destroy them all.”

But Kreacher shakes his head so hard his ears flop. “Master Regulus was knowing only the one.”

Harry sighs a little. Well, it was worth a try. “Then you may go, Kreacher. And keep an eye on Black for me, would you? Tell me if he’s plotting anything against me.”

“Kreacher would do far more than that for Master Harry Potter,” the elf says, puffing out his chest, and vanishes.

Harry turns to Theodore. “Ready?”

Theodore smiles at him. “Ready. You are remarkable, my lord.” He extends his arm so Harry can bring him through the shadows to the Greengrass estate. “Although I hope that we don’t have to bury the remains of too many more of those.”

*

Theodore’s wish comes true, although in an irritating way. They return for their sixth year at Hogwarts not having found any more of the Horcruxes.

Harry did receive an Outstanding on his Potions OWL, which makes Snape glare at him as he comes into the classroom. Harry only raises his eyebrows at the git and says nothing. He is going to do something about Snape, too, now that Neville is one of his vassals. It will simply take a while to build. For now, the pranks that the twins regularly send to all of Harry’s marked ones are doing the job nicely.

Padma and Justin, as the ones with the most innocent faces and the ones who never played any pranks on Snape before, are particularly good at them.

Their Defense Against the Dark Arts professor turns out to be a (badly, in Harry’s opinion) disguised Sirius Black. He concentrates a lot on the theory behind Dark Arts and how Dark Arts are evil, and on countercurses and defense moves. Most people seem to love him. Granger and the Weasleys go around with smug smiles on their faces because they know something other people don’t.

Harry wants to shake his head, but doesn’t. Even Neville, by far the most obvious of his marked ones, doesn’t show that he has a secret like that.

He does have a problem that comes up in the third week of the new school year, when Harry is going back to the Slytherin common room from a late-night detention with Black. Black thinks detentions and haranguing him about his parents and offering Harry free Firewhisky is the best way to get Harry on his side. Harry takes the Firewhisky but doesn’t drink it. Instead, he sells it to seventh-year Gryffindors who want to get good and drunk.

It’s the only reason Harry keeps going to the detentions. Honestly, in some ways he’s grown beyond Hogwarts. The fact that so many of his vassals are here and that getting his NEWT’s will help him in the future are the only reasons he’s still attending classes.

Someone moves in the third-floor corridor ahead of him. Harry stops and coils the shadows in readiness to attack. Some of them have teeth and heads until he quiets them. Creating shadowfire from the Fiendfyre seems to have made the normal shadows all the more eager to defend him.

The person comes around the corner. Harry raises his eyebrows. “Weasley.”

“Harry.” It’s Ginny Weasley, her eyes big and hopeful. “Are you—I know you said that you were in a relationship with Nott two summers ago, but you aren’t right now, are you?”

Harry nods. “I still am.” It doesn’t surprise him that Weasley has been this unobservant. Gryffindors never _do_ pay enough attention to Slytherins, unless they’re one of the few smart ones Harry has found.

(Although sometimes they aren’t so smart, either. Colin is pushing for his little brother Dennis to be marked. Harry tells him Dennis is too young, and Colin argued that he wants to and Colin wants him to and he’s going to be able to keep all their secrets once he’s under the lordship oath anyway. Harry hasn’t won the argument yet, but neither has Colin).

“Oh.” Weasley droops, looking devastated. Harry doesn’t feel sorry for her. After all, it’s her own lack of observation skills that’s the problem, not anything Harry did. “I—I really like you, Harry. And you know that I’ve spent a lot of time with Sirius and Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix, right? I could tell you everything you want to know.”

Harry holds back his guffaw. This is a weird bargain, kind of like the ones that his vassals made with him, but honestly, _dating_ as a price? Harry doesn’t think he would ever have been interested in dating if he hadn’t found Theodore.

Harry shakes his head. “No, thanks, Weasley.”

She watches him go with the same huge eyes. Harry sighs to himself and decides that he has to keep an eye on her. She might try to hang around him and pry into what he and his vassals are doing.

When Theodore welcomes him back to the common room, it’s with firm hands on his shoulder and a desperate kiss. Harry runs his hands gently up and down Theodore’s arms, and asks when he finishes, “What is it?”

“I saw Weasley following you,” Theodore says, drawing him down to a couch. “And following you with her eyes earlier. My lord, you wouldn’t…”

“You’re the only one for me,” Harry says, and squeezes Theodore’s hand until he smiles.

*

“Psst, Potter.”

Harry wants to roll his eyes as he turns around. Malfoy thinks he’s subtle. He never is, but it suits Harry’s purposes for the moment to let him go on thinking it, so he tilts his head. “Yes, Malfoy?”

Malfoy glances around as if to make sure that they’re alone, although they are. They’re up in the sixth-year boys’ bedroom, and Crabbe and Goyle are Merlin knows where. Zabini is in the library with Theodore, being carefully felt out to see if he wants perhaps to join the vassals. It’s not because Harry _wants_ more, but because it would be useful to have an equal number of people on their side in case their bedroom turns into a war zone.

Yes, Harry has his shadows, always. But he’s taking no chances with Theodore’s safety, now more than ever.

“You really should join the Dark Lord,” Malfoy says.

“Subtle, you aren’t,” Harry mutters before he can stop himself.

Malfoy flushes, but doesn’t burst out with the usual haughty language. Instead, keeping his eyes on Harry, he draws up his sleeve. There on his left arm is the blazing Dark Mark.

Harry resists the instinct to lash out. It’s interesting, because he’s sure Snape has the Dark Mark, but he’s never had that instinct around him. Maybe it’s seeing it. Maybe it’s because he’s a Lord himself with marked vassals now.

“Imagine how powerful the Dark Lord is,” Malfoy whispers. “I’m in Dumbledore’s school, bearing his brand, and still Dumbledore has no idea. You could have that power, too, if you only joined him, Potter.”

“He tried to kill my boyfriend. Why would I?”

“That’s a small sacrifice to pay for power. I would sacrifice Pansy in an instant if the Dark Lord asked me to.”

Harry smiles. Malfoy seems to see how big it is and not what it conceals, just like Dumbledore, because he smiles back. Malfoy is too stupid even to know that he and Pansy aren’t dating. Therefore, Harry expects to be able to dance rings around him.

“I don’t make the same sacrifices. I don’t play by the same rules. The Dark Lord would have to prove himself to me.”

“How could he do that?” Malfoy is almost dancing with glee.

“For example,” Harry says, “I’m interested in History, as you well know.” Malfoy nods; Harry’s Outstanding in History of Magic, the first a Slytherin student has earned in years, was talked up all over their House by Theodore. “I want to talk to the House ghosts about what they’ve seen and learned, but few of them will speak to me. I want to know if the Dark Lord knows charms or spells for making ghosts talk to me. That would be an initial investment.”

Malfoy stands tall. “I can tell you that right now, Potter.”

“The Dark Lord’s trusted you with such a charm?”

“Not a charm. Knowledge. He spoke to the House ghosts when he was—here.” Malfoy’s voice is hushed. Harry supposes that it’s almost blasphemy for him to think of the Dark Lord as a young Hogwarts student. “He gave me permission to invoke his name to get the Bloody Baron to help me if necessary.”

“Well, Slytherin’s house ghost.” Harry makes himself shrug. “If I wanted to talk to him, he probably would already just because I’m a student in his House. But what about the Grey Lady, for example?”

“He did speak to the Grey Lady, as it happens.” Malfoy couldn’t look more smug if the shadows around him were full of smugness, too.

“He did?” Harry makes his voice sound a little awed, and of course Malfoy falls for it.

“Yes. He said that he was the first person in over a hundred years to get more than a few words out of her. And you can imagine that she’s going to rejoice when she hears that you’re one of his followers.”

“Let’s not leap ahead, Malfoy. I want to try out of the validity of this information first and make sure that his name actually convinces the Grey Lady to speak to me.”

Malfoy looks disappointed, but nods. “Do let me know when you’ve spoken to her, Potter, so I can take word back to my Lord.”

“Oh, I will.” Harry gives Malfoy one more smile and watches him strut away, then goes to find Theodore and Zabini, dreaming all the while of what Theodore’s revenge on the pompous prat is going to be.

*

When Harry mentions Tom Riddle’s name, the Grey Lady swoops and shrieks at him.

Harry steps neatly out of the way and watches dispassionately as she flies past him and through a wall. He knows, logically, that she’s the most dangerous opponent he’s probably faced, because he can’t see her coming the way he can with most people, but he’s already tricking Dumbledore and Voldemort both and he’s destroyed two Horcruxes. He just can’t get upset the way he would have a few years ago.

The Grey Lady bursts out from the stone again almost right in his face. Harry deflects her with a shadow-dragon’s wing. She stops flying and immediately stares at him. “What are you?”

“Someone who has lots of magic,” Harry says. Before she can lose interest or retreat into silence again, he adds, “And someone who would like to rescue your mother’s diadem from the corruption that Tom Riddle steeped it in.”

“You know? You _know_? Then why did you talk to me?”

The Grey Lady looks like she’s about to cry. Harry puts out his hands. “I don’t know where the diadem is. And I only suspect what he did to it, I don’t know for sure. But if I’m right, then he made it into a Horcrux.” He watches as the ghost recoils even though she’s floating in midair, and nods. “You would want it to stop being one, right?”

“Of _course_ I would! But the only thing I know is that Tom Riddle told me he would bring the diadem home. Then I never saw him again until he was corrupted into Lord Voldemort. He must have been lying.”

Harry blinks. Then he says, “Did you think he would restore it to your mother’s tomb?”

“Of course not. My mother is buried in the foundations of Hogwarts. I thought he would bring it here. But I never saw it again.”

“If he hid it…?”

“That’s impossible.” The Grey Lady holds out her hands. For a second, a shimmering blue and bronze glow surrounds them, the only color Harry has ever seen in a ghost. It dissipates almost immediately. “I still hold on to that much magic. I would have sensed the diadem if it was anywhere within Hogwarts.”

“There aren’t places that are hidden from any magic like that? House magic or ghost magic? Places like the Chamber of Secrets that was opened several years ago?”

The Grey Lady’s eyes widen. Then she murmurs, “I never thought—I would have thought of that myself, but I was sunken too deep in my own sorrow. But how can I help you in that case? My magic would still not sense them. And I have never known where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is. Salazar was too cautious.”

“It may not be there,” Harry reassures her. “It may be somewhere else. If you could give me a list of those places, then I may be able to search and find them.”

And he’s sure that whoever was opening the Chamber of Secrets in his second year must have had access to Parseltongue, which means that he can even open that. If he can find it.

*

That’s how Harry ends up opening the door of a room on the seventh floor that only springs into existence when you call it, and stepping into a sea of rubbish.

Coughing, Harry casts a charm that clears the dust away from his nose and mouth, and looks around in curiosity tinged with awe. Some of these things, like the fur-trimmed robe he can see with huge claw slashes through it or the broken chair it’s hanging from, are probably worthless. Others, like a giant mirror with runes carved into it, might be valuable.

But it will take a long time to search, and Harry doesn’t know any spells that can find a diadem or Horcrux specifically. He sighs and sets out to look for it.

As it turns out, he doesn’t need spells. His head snaps around after an hour when he feels the dark, greasy magic that surrounded the ring and the locket. There’s a cabinet ahead of him, and on the cabinet is a bust, and hanging from the bust’s ear is a diadem.

It’s slim and made of shining silver, and has a sapphire in the middle. When Harry steps close enough to it to read the inscription curling around it in delicate letters, he can see that it says, _Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure._

Harry sighs out and floats the diadem into the air. While there don’t seem to be protections around this one the way there were around the ring, he doesn’t want to take any chances. He takes himself and the diadem through shadow to the same dark corner of the grounds where he marked his vassals last year and unleashes shadowfire that this time takes the form of giant frogs with clapping mouths and fish without eyes.

And so he destroys his third Horcrux, a week before the Christmas holidays.

*

“Harry, wait up! I want to talk to you!”

Harry groans and turns around, leaning on the wall. Theodore bristles protectively beside him. They just went through the marking ritual for Dennis—Harry did indeed lose that battle—and for Susan Bones, whose willingness to participate shocked Harry. But it turns out that Susan is a total orphan now; Voldemort murdered her aunt Amelia Bones over the summer. Susan is willing to do whatever it takes to get vengeance on him.

Harry’s tired and would like to go to bed. But Black is hastening towards him, and at least he knows that Black isn’t one of the professors who will get after him for being out of bed after curfew. He nods to Theodore, and Theodore nods back once and continues on his way to the Slytherin common room.

Black comes to a stop in front of him, eyes wide and worried. “Harry, I want to know why you aren’t coming to Grimmauld Place for the holidays.”

Harry’s exhaustion makes him pause before he answers. He might give away too much of himself otherwise. “Because you and Lupin want to be my family, and that’s never going to happen.”

“But _why_ , Harry?”

“Why did you never write to me once you broke out of Azkaban?”

Black flushes violently, but for once, he looks Harry in the eye and answers instead of turning away and being silent. “Because I thought you didn’t need an influence like me in your life. You know. Wild and a fugitive. But since then, I realized how much you _do_ need someone like me, so you don’t go Dark.”

“Did it ever occur to you,” Harry says very slowly, “that going Dark, however you define it, isn’t the worst thing that could happen to me?”

“No,” Black says, face and voice both blank. Harry thinks it’s pure surprise, not that he’s hiding something.

“It isn’t,” Harry said. “As it happens, I do practice magic other than Dark Arts, and I do have friends other than the Slytherins. You’re just upset because they’re not _all_ Gryffindors, and I don’t do _all_ the things my parents did. But you’re too late to influence me into turning into a hero, Black. Just give it up.”

Black blinks at him. Then he says, “But you’re working with Dumbledore.”

“That doesn’t make me a hero or a Gryffindor. It doesn’t make me someone who’s going to date a red-haired woman like my father,” Harry adds, remembering the way that Ginny Weasley’s eyes continue to follow him across a room, and that Black often nods and smiles encouragingly to her. “You can’t relate to me unless you see me for _me_ , not someone you want me to be like.”

Black just looks at him. Harry finally turns and walks away. He’s given Black all the chances he can.

*

He and Theodore end up going to the house that Susan is maintaining by herself, her aunt Amelia’s house, for the Christmas holidays. Susan turned seventeen on the second of December, and that ended the legal challenges that people were trying to gain custody of her, as she tells Harry and Theodore with fire in her eyes.

“I think the laws should all be changed,” she says, sitting in front of her fireplace with a glass of butterbeer in her hand. “The ones that say how children can be treated if their bloody family members all die out are _barbaric_.”

“What do the laws say about Muggle family members?” Harry asks, mildly interested. He has nothing to worry about, but if he didn’t have shadow magic, then he might have.

Susan looks at him as if he’s mad. “No one would ever leave a known magical child with Muggle family, no matter how closely related. It’s different for the Muggleborns, they have no choice, and usually only the Headmaster of Hogwarts and maybe some Obliviators know about them until they turn eleven. But if you’re _known_?” Susan shakes her head, making her long plait sway. “It doesn’t happen.”

Theodore looks at Harry with something hotter than Firewhisky burning in his eyes. Harry raises his glass in a toast that’s meant to quiet him as much as acknowledge him.

Harry already has plans for Dumbledore. Leaving him with the Dursleys is only one more point to the score.

*

The second half of Harry’s sixth year is quiet. Harry still searches for information on Hufflepuff’s cup, but that seems to have disappeared good and proper. He contents Malfoy with vague intimations that he’s considering joining Voldemort, which he “proves” by not having any more public confirmations that he believes Voldemort has returned. He accepts a scarf in green and silver from Black, and wonders.

He reads the news of Voldemort breaking some of his followers out of Azkaban without surprise. Harry only wonders why he didn’t do it before. He supposes Voldemort was simply lying low, given that the Ministry is still officially in denial of his return.

“Bellatrix Lestrange,” Neville says softly during an informal meeting that Harry’s taken to having with his vassals in a variation of the room where he found the diadem. It’s a huge place decorated in all four House colors and with large targets that Harry’s put up at the back of the room. “She was one of the people who tortured my parents into insanity.”

Harry stares at him. “What?”

Neville tells the story with his gaze fixed on the fire. Dean puts a supportive hand on his shoulder. The Hufflepuffs look shocked—except for Susan—and murmur their condolences. The Slytherins and Ravenclaws mostly look thoughtful.

Colin clenches his fists. “I wish I could do something to them, Neville,” he mutters, and Dennis nods emphatically beside him.

Harry touches Neville’s shoulder lightly to claim his attention. “I’ll let you have her,” he says.

Neville blinks at him. “I—I’m not really into killing, Harry.”

“Then you can be the one to duel her and put her back into prison.” Harry shrugs. He doesn’t care about _bloody_ vengeance on people or if his vassals do exactly what he would do, only getting vengeance and giving his vassals what they want. “I don’t really care what you do. Just know that she’s yours.”

Neville smiles after a stunned second. “Thank you, my lord. I—I suppose I can think of something to do with her.” Then he frowns. “But I’m not good enough at dueling to put her back in prison if I meet her.”

“That’s something we’re here to correct,” Harry tells him as he stands up and draws his wand. He’s been teaching Shield Charms and some of the offensive curses he learned from the Black books to his vassals. He might as well get on with it. They’ve talked long enough. “If you want to learn some advanced dueling spells, come with me.”

All his vassals are eager to learn the spells, except Theodore, who already knows them and stays lounging in a chair near the fire, grinning at Harry. Harry grins back and turns to face the small crowd again.

Neville and Justin both have the looks of awe on their faces that makes Harry want to sigh. They think he’s doing something absolutely burdensome on him, absolutely for free.

Of course it’s not. The better they defend themselves, the less often Harry has to come roaring to the rescue. And he enjoys teaching. He would never do this if he didn’t enjoy it.

Briefly, he has cause to remember that he’s had to do several things he didn’t enjoy, including marking all these people who somehow keep showing up and asking him to do it. But he shakes that loose. He isn’t going to mark anyone else, thank Merlin. No one’s asked in months.

*

“ _No_. Absolutely not.”

Susan’s gaze doesn’t waver. She’s kneeling on the floor in front of him, along with Hannah Abbott, whom Harry doesn’t know much about, except that she has a pure-blood last name and is Susan’s yearmate. “Please, my lord.”

Harry waves his hands vaguely in the air. They’re in the Hidden Room again, except that Susan asked to meet with him _alone_ , and then showed up with Hannah. “What motive do you even have for this, anyway?” he asks Hannah. “You’re not bullied, I don’t think, and you don’t have vengeance to claim like Susan, right?”

“I can see where the power’s going as well as anyone.” Hannah sounds a little offended. “Did you think I couldn’t because I’m a Hufflepuff?”

“This has nothing to do with that! What I’m doing is supposed to be a _secret_.”

“At a certain point, that has to stop, my lord,” Susan offers. She shrugs when Harry glares at her. “It’s only true. It’s not because we’re running around betraying your secrets. It’s because other people see your magic, or see that we’re sneaking out of our rooms at night, and put pieces together.”

“But you don’t _have_ to,” Harry says to Hannah, with his very best persuasive smile. “You can stay on the sidelines of the war.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to follow you?” Hannah looks stubborn and suspicious.

“Because I’m much more of a Dark Lord than Dumbledore,” Harry says flatly. “And I’m making my vassals more powerful, sure, but not necessarily to change the world like some of the Gryffindors or even the Death Eaters might try to do. You could swear to me and then just find your political career going nowhere.”

“I’m not interested in politics. I’m interested in keeping my friends and family safe. Susan says you’re the same, and I trust her.”

“You,” Harry tells Susan darkly, “have a lot to answer for.”

Susan only gives him a demure smile, and watches as Harry swears Hannah to a wand-vow. She also attends Hannah’s marking, held two new moons after that.

*

“Harry, my boy, I have lessons that I would like to impart to you…”

Harry leaves the first of Dumbledore’s “lessons,” showing a memory of a young Gaunt woman falling in love with a handsome Muggle, and laughs himself sick in the Slytherin common room. Dumbledore is trying to give him lessons on _Horcruxes,_ of all things!

Of course, he couldn’t say that outright when Harry asked what the lesson were for. Instead, he said vaguely that they would help Harry “defeat Voldemort.” Harry shakes his head now and wipes a few tears from his eyes. Damn, Dumbledore is funny sometimes.

Harry also supposes he should be glad that one person other than he and Theodore knows about Horcruxes, so Voldemort can still be brought down if they both die. Harry just wishes that it was someone other than Dumbledore, who Harry wouldn’t like to survive beyond Voldemort’s death.

Dumbledore does tell him two interesting things as the “lessons” continue. He thinks that Voldemort was aiming to make six Horcruxes, to create seven pieces of soul total. He also tells Harry that he himself destroyed one Horcrux in Harry’s second year.

“A diary that was possessing poor Ginny Weasley, giving her the power to speak to a basilisk in Parseltongue and open the Chamber of Secrets. She should not be blamed, of course. She was young, and vulnerable to outside influences…”

Harry utterly ignores the implication that he should find someone who let herself be possessed attractive. Instead, he’s thinking.

Six Horcruxes—but Harry knows for sure that Voldemort doesn’t know about the one in his scar, or Voldemort would have done much more to collect Harry and lock him away somewhere safe. So. Seven altogether.

The diary is gone. So are the ring, locket, and diadem. Harry has no intention of letting anyone touch the Horcrux in him, so five are accounted for.

That leaves Hufflepuff’s cup—a suspicion confirmed when Dumbledore shows him the memories that he collected from Hokey about Hepzibah Smith—and a last one. Dumbledore tells him that he is virtually sure Nagini, the large snake that follows Voldemort around, is that one, which Harry has to admit makes sense. Voldemort would value a snake above other living beings that he might put a Horcrux inside.

So Harry needs to find the cup and find a way to kill Nagini. He has to assume that, even though she’s alive, basilisk venom and Fiendfyre are the only things that can touch her, just like a regular Horcrux.

He is still having no luck gaining any insight on the cup, so he decides to tackle the snake first.

*

Harry travels through shadows to the Nott house, leaving Theodore behind. Harry doesn’t want to chance his father seeing him, and Theodore would only protest at the danger that he would think Harry is putting himself in, even though Harry isn’t at all.

As he suspected, Voldemort has made the Nott house his headquarters, or at least a place that he spends a lot of time. Harry only waits two hours, hidden in the shadow of a tall vase, before Voldemort arrives. Following him is a large pit viper that looks as if she holds all the lethal qualities of his shadow-snakes.

Harry gathers up Fiendfyre on the tip of his wand. It dances and tries to edge around his will, but only until he clamps down on it and mixes shadow with it. Then it’s his, this time draping his wand in dark-burning phoenixes and birds of prey.

Voldemort leaves Nagini at one edge of the large receiving hall of the Nott house while he speaks with Aethelred at the far end. Harry briefly thinks about traveling through shadow to that end to spy on them, but Nagini is a more important goal.

Grey fire swarms out of the shadows around her, from Harry’s hands and wand and unmanifested body, and grabs hold of Nagini.

Her shriek is a terrible thing, but Harry thinks that only he and Voldemort can actually understand it, because Aethelred is staring blankly as Voldemort runs towards the snake. Voldemort chants a quick countercurse that would put ordinary Fiendfyre out, but what Harry’s conjured is beyond his reach.

A phoenix descends on Nagini’s head and tenderly rips it apart with its claws. A second later, a hawk is there, gulping up the pieces of her body and letting charred ash dribble out from under its tail.

Harry laughs silently to himself at the idea of Nagini becoming Horcrux-driven bird shit.

Voldemort screams in Parseltongue, first Nagini’s name, over and over, and then demands that the person who did this reveal themselves. Harry shakes his head. Has that _ever_ worked, in the history of Dark wizards with enemies? He doesn’t think so.

He stays only long enough to make sure that Nagini really _is_ a pile of ash and shit and Voldemort doesn’t manage to stop the burning somehow, and then leaps away. Voldemort is ranting at Aethelred about how the defenses on his house didn’t stop whoever did this, and by the sounds of it, he can probably go all night.

*

Sixth year ends without any leads on the Hufflepuff cup but also, thank God, without anyone else asking to be marked. Harry is glad to stay with Theodore at Susan’s house for the summer and get away from Ginny Weasley’s cow’s eyes.

It also helps that Susan’s house is one of the places that Dumbledore will never think to look for them. Susan isn’t obviously “Dark,” her aunt wasn’t part of Dumbledore’s Order even if she was secretly sympathetic to them the way Susan thinks, and Hufflepuffs don’t seem to exist for Dumbledore in his blinkered view of the world as Gryffindor and Slytherin.

Harry himself hasn’t been thinking enough about Hufflepuffs, as Theodore tells him when he comes up one day with a large tome and asks bluntly, “Why don’t you do a blood ritual to locate the cup?”

“What are you talking about?” Harry is hanging upside-down from a bar in the exercise room. He flips himself over and drops, and sees the quick flick of Theodore’s appreciative eyes down the muscles of his calves before he brings them back to Harry’s face. Harry grins at him.

“A blood ritual.” Theodore spreads the book out. “It can find certain objects—or people, it’s more often used for that—who are related by blood to an object’s owner or the member of a family.”

“An object isn’t related by blood—”

“Fine, an object that belonged to someone _related by blood_ to the person whose blood you use. The person whose blood you use in the ritual. And I’ll thank you not to correct my grammar, my lord.”

Harry shows him another grin and sends shadows tumbling around the walls, making the exercise room look briefly as if it stands in the middle of a silent storm. “I take it that you think we should use Smith’s blood.”

“He _has_ made himself intolerable to several of your Hufflepuff vassals, my lord.”

Harry nods thoughtfully. Apparently Smith wants to marry a Hufflepuff girl, and he keeps telling Hannah and Susan that their blood is “ _almost_ good enough.” They don’t complain about it as true bullying, so so far Harry hasn’t done anything about Smith.

But now…

“He can help in the greater good, as Dumbledore would say,” he tells Theodore, and gets a smile in return and a familiar widening of the eyes and vibration of the bond in the back of his head. It seems that his mocking Dumbledore turns Theodore on.

Then again, there’s very little about Harry that doesn’t turn Theodore on, apparently.

And Harry wouldn’t have it any other way.

*

Capturing Smith is ridiculously easy. His family’s house has shadows _everywhere_ , and they seem to think that dozens of torches make them better descendants of Hufflepuff or something. Harry blinds and binds Smith, and carries him back to Susan’s house through the shadows.

Susan stands with her arms folded, watching, as Harry cuts Smith’s arm and bleeds him into a goblet that Theodore bought with some of Harry’s money in Knockturn Alley yesterday. It’s a golden cup with two handles. The ritual’s description said that the more similar the container for the blood is to the object they’re seeking, the better the ritual will work.

Harry did tell Susan that she didn’t have to be involved in this, but she shook her head. “I’m getting some of my revenge already,” she says, beaming down at Smith, who’s making babbling noises behind his gag.

Smith turns his head towards her voice in shock, and Harry sighs and deafens him, too, although with a charm instead of shadows. “We’ll have to use one of the twins’ memory-altering potions on him before we let him go,” he says.

“Oh,” Susan murmurs, “ _do_ allow me.”

Harry nods gracious permission, and accompanies Theodore to the ritual room in the center of the house. Torches flare to life the instant they enter, and so does the iron circle set in the center of the floor. Iron is the best of all metals to use with blood magic, given its presence in blood itself. Harry considers the fact that Amelia Bones had one already set up a happy sign from the universe.

Theodore sets the goblet of blood in Harry’s hands and backs away. Harry steps into the center of the circle with the goblet, and at once the circle seals behind him with a spark that leaps up into the air like the beginning of Fiendfyre. Harry slowly closes his eyes and focuses entirely on the weight of the cup in his hands, how heavy it is, how round, how much he longs to find the one that corresponds to it.

“Find me Hufflepuff’s cup that belonged to the woman who was the ancestor of this blood,” he whispers. “Draw me a _map_.” And he scatters the blood into the air with a shout.

Theodore’s gasp near the door tells him it’s working, but Harry has to keep his eyes shut for the moment, and doesn’t know what the map looks like. When he can finally look, after the drain on his magic stops, he smiles in appreciation.

Red specks hang in the air, outlining major landmarks: mountains, rivers, coastlines. Most of them cluster into a large group that Harry is sure is London, and there’s a complex swirl of them in the center of _that_. Harry nods as he looks at the letters that have begun to form beneath the map.

The ritual can only give him three words, but if it’s been done properly, they should be informative ones.

_Bellatrix Lestrange Gringotts._

Harry loses his hold on the ritual in his shock, and the words become a random rain of blood onto the floor in the center of the circle, accompanied by the map a moment later. Harry wipes his face clean and thinks about it. Then he turns to Theodore and holds out his hand. Theodore crosses the inactive circle at once to clasp his wrist.

“It seems that it might be time to reveal my shadows to the rest of them,” Harry tells him. “If only so Neville can get his revenge.”

*

It’s on his birthday, a day after Neville’s, that Harry goes on his Gringotts raid. He takes Theodore, Neville, Susan—who insisted on seeing the shadows—and the twins with him. The twins are to provide rearguard coverage, distracting goblins who happen upon them if necessary.

Fred and George are more than happy to get to test how their tricks work against goblins, and ecstatic to finally figure out how his powers work. They admit, as Harry has them link arms with each other, Susan, Neville, and Theodore, that they never would have suspected shadows.

“Lots of places,” Fred sings out to George as they appear in the underground of the bank, not far from Harry’s vault.

“But not everywhere,” George finishes, and grins at Harry. “And it’s not doors.”

Harry smiles briefly back at them, and leaps through shadows again with them in search of Bellatrix’s vault. He had to wait as long as he did to collect some of Black’s blood, since he’s related to Bellatrix, and locate the number of her vault that way. Like Smith, Black was given the memory potion and returned to his bed after Harry was done using him in the ritual. Harry will never feel that Black is family, but he doesn’t have to die.

There’s the problem of how he’s going to get through the Lestrange vault door with absolute darkness inside—Harry tested that on his own vault, and apparently all of them are dark—but he has a few ideas. He turns and flicks his attention only away up the tunnel, to the corner where he heard a shifting of feet and a clanking of chains. He smiles, pleased, when he sees the large chained dragon lying on the floor of the tunnel.

“Be ready,” he tells Fred and George from the shadows.

They nod at once and ready some fireworks. Neville has his wand in hand. Susan is looking fascinated. Theodore stands at Harry’s right shoulder with his hands folded behind his back, as always.

Harry creates a shadow-dragon easily by now, after all the practice he’s had. It slides forwards around the corner and confronts the real one, which lifts its head and roars a challenge. Harry thinks he can hear stone creaking and groaning from the sound of that roar.

And, more important, the dragon breathes fire. Shadows fill the corridor, some of them extending under the door of the Lestrange vault.

Harry chuckles and leaps under and _through_ , bringing Neville, Susan, and Theodore with him. He can hear goblin voices yelling in the distance, and the sharp _pop_ of some of the twins’ fireworks going off. They want to irritate the dragon as much as possible, and then hide, because the goblins should think that one of their dragons just went a little mad if at all possible.

The inside of the vault is full of gold piled up to the ceiling. Harry conjures a flame on his hand to keep the shadows moving, and looks quickly over the vault.

He expects a golden cup to be hard to find in all the Galleons, but those months he spent thinking about it and focusing on the shape in his mind lead his eyes straight to it. Hufflepuff’s cup sits on a high shelf, and it has a few spells shimmering around it, but none of the protections that were in place on the ring.

Harry grins as he realizes that it also has the stinking dark murk of a Horcrux worked into it. This ought to be the last of them, except the one he’s never giving up.

“Ready, Neville?” Harry asks Neville.

Neville takes a deep breath and raises his wand. Even if he never faces Bellatrix in battle, Harry promised him this much revenge.

He roars the incantation for Fiendfyre, and it springs out to swallow the gold in the vault. Harry dumps shadow into one particular set of flames and seizes control of them—easy enough to do with his link to Neville’s magic through the mark—and sends a gigantic bat streaming up towards the cup. It reminds him of the shapeless creature he sent to wrap around Dudley seven years ago.

The protections that are on the cup try to shield it. There’s a curse to make it burn whoever touches it, but shadowfire burns hotter. And there’s a curse to make everything double, but when doubled items merely fall into Neville’s fire…

Harry laughs aloud as he watches the cup melt into a small stream of gold just like the locket and the ring did. Voldemort really ought to have chosen sturdier objects to be his Horcruxes.

_Although I suppose he was counting on the traps he had around them, and the location in Gringotts, and the fact that most people would rather use them than destroy them._

By now, Neville is sweating and straining and on the verge of losing control of the Fiendfyre. Harry gently takes it from him and confines it to the vault. It doesn’t want to go out, but Harry makes it, and uses the last of the shadows to take them all out under the vault door again.

Fred and George are laughing as they stand behind a conjured stone wall, tossing fireworks and the like down the tunnel. Harry sees that they’ve cast the same doubling curse that was on the contents of Lestrange’s vault on them, leaving the goblins to deal with a positive avalanche of stones, flames, scurrying metal creatures, and everything else the mental minds of the twins could think of. The dragon is also still roaring and thrashing around in its chains, and breathing fire that the goblins have to duck.

Harry is a little sad that they don’t have time to investigate the other vaults and steal their contents, but they’ve caused enough chaos in the bank for one day. He motions, and Fred and George take hold of each other before Fred grabs Susan’s arm. And then they’re gone, leaving the goblins to shout uselessly behind them.

Much the way Voldemort did when Harry burned Nagini, come to think of it.

*

Harry and Theodore begin their seventh year in a haze of confusion from the papers. Voldemort’s attacks have suddenly stopped, and no one can figure out why. Now and then his Death Eaters are spotted, but they always retreat quickly, with the exception of the Lestranges.

Harry snorts. He understands why. Voldemort must be beyond cautious now, wondering if he has any Horcruxes left. He can check other places, but he can’t easily get into Hogwarts, and he wouldn’t know what happened to the locket after Regulus Black stole it, so he can’t know for _sure_.

Harry is already planning where he’ll confront Voldemort. In fact, he has an idea for the _place_ , but he needs a lot of safeguards to make sure that the _why_ and the _how_ go into effect, and Voldemort is persuaded to go to the place at all.

For once, though, Hogwarts is pretty quiet. Dumbledore continues his Horcrux lessons; it’s hilarious when Harry realizes that he’s subtly trying to guide Harry towards the thought of sacrificing himself to destroy the Horcrux Dumbledore must know is in him. Ginny Weasley mopes around, but doesn’t approach him directly. Black is gone as Defense professor and some Ministry drone is in his place, but since she doesn’t appear to be an actual Death Eater, Harry doesn’t care.

He spends a lot of time snogging Theodore and studying for his NEWT’s. At times it feels like he’s almost a regular Hogwarts student.

But then he goes back to planning his confrontation with Voldemort and his vengeance on Dumbledore and Snape, and he knows better.

*

At last, Harry decides that he’s going to have to make the final confrontation flashy. Subtle is just not going to cut it with Voldemort, any more than it does with Malfoy. He would distrust every little clue and suspicious hint that Harry tried to give him, anyway.

So Harry spends a month or so working hard—he’s pretty good at Transfiguration, not so great at enchanting objects—at creating a replica of the locket and the diadem. Then he steps into the Great Hall one morning and walks straight up to Malfoy.

People are staring at him after his second step. Harry knows why. They can see it now, his shadows snapping and uncoiling about him, rising up so that they wrap around the tables and most of the students. Those of his vassals who didn’t know about the shadow magic are staring with shining eyes and open mouths. Most of the others are cowering.

Harry thought he would always be fearful to finally reveal his shadow magic. But he realized recently that, if there’s really nothing about it in the wizarding world’s books except when it comes to Horcruxes, that means no one can counter it, either.

And it feels _fucking great_ to show off who he is.

He dangles the locket and the diadem, one in each fist, in front of Malfoy. “Tell your Lord to come and get the pieces of his soul if he dares,” Harry sneers. He’s spent some time practicing that sneer, to make it as convincingly Voldemort-like as he can. “If he dares to face Dementors. _And me_.”

Harry sends shadows racing and reeling across the room as Malfoy opens his mouth in shock. They gather up his vassals, wrapping securely around them, and bring them over to Harry. He could probably transport them without touching them, he thinks now, but he’s not going to take the risk. He jerks his head at Neville and Susan, who grab hold of his shoulders and reach out to the others, who get the idea quickly.

Theodore is right behind him, his hand on the nape of Harry’s neck where a mark would be if Harry had one.

And Harry _leaps_ , retracing a journey he’s already taken many times this school year.

To Azkaban island.

*

His vassals begin to shiver the minute they land, except Theodore, standing tall and proud at his side. Harry calls forth his silver Nundu Patronus, thinking of the last time that he and Theodore snogged, and it prowls in a circle around them, driving back the Dementors.

Harry smiles and dumps the replica locket and diadem behind a shield. For now, the Dementors are hovering at a distance, held back by his Nundu and, a second later, Theodore’s silver cobra. And it’s a good thing, too.

Harry has had a hard enough time filling the shadows of Azkaban with his little surprises and then telling them _not_ to attack. It would be harder if the Dementors came near now.

“What’s going to happen?” Hannah sounds more than breathless. Susan didn’t tell her about the shadows, then. Harry nods approvingly at both of them. Susan stands a little taller.

“Now Voldemort is going to come,” Harry says, which makes several of his vassals cringe. Dean takes a deep breath, though, and draws his wand.

“Let him come.”

Harry smiles at Dean. “Thank you. But I plan to deal with him myself. For now, I need you to work on holding back the Death Eaters.”

It takes even less time than Harry thought it would. Either Malfoy or one of the other Death Eaters in the school must have communicated with Voldemort through the Mark. Pops of Apparition sound, not surprising Harry. Voldemort has more than enough magic to drop the spells keeping that from happening all over the island.

Voldemort is surrounded by Death Eaters, most of whom Harry can’t identify, although he sees the wild, streaming hair of Bellatrix. He catches Neville’s eye and nods at her. Neville’s grip gets even tighter on his wand.

“I would have left you alone.” Voldemort spits the words like a curse. “If you could have only accepted that my followers’ children belong to _me_ —”

“Not so,” Harry says, and gestures lazily with his wand. All of his followers’ marks light up, blazing silver. Theodore turns around and lifts his hair to show his own mark. “I’ve chosen those who follow me, Voldemort. And they chose me back.”

Voldemort doesn’t respond. His eyes have locked on the replica locket and diadem. This close, Harry thinks he might grasp that they’re not real, but the shield might be confusing him, or Harry’s work on the enchantments that made them radiate the foul aura of a Horcrux _really_ worked. “Return my _possessions_.” The last word is nothing but a hiss.

“No.” Harry smiles at him.

Voldemort lifts his wand and begins to cast. And Harry claps his hands together and releases his hold on the snakes that he filled Azkaban’s shadows with on his trips here.

The island is covered with snakes, cobras and mambas and kraits and vipers and every other poisonous serpent Harry has read about or could think of, and they go after everything and everyone that doesn’t have Harry’s mark. The Dementors move in now that Harry’s concentration on his Patronus is wavering, but after the first few are torn apart by snakes, they begin to stream away.

Harry isn’t concerned. The snakes will follow them as long as shadows exist, and Dementors can’t travel, any more than the snakes can, where there are _no_ shadows. He’s going to cleanse the world of them today.

Voldemort hisses at the snakes in Parseltongue, trying to turn them back, but nothing happens, of course. He doesn’t have shadow magic as a consequence of creating a Horcrux. Harry stands with a smile on his face, only now and then moving his wand to counter a curse Voldemort manages to send, while serpents roll over Voldemort’s body in waves and begin to rip and tear.

He’s happy to see some of his vassals getting revenge of their own. Neville is dueling Bellatrix and doing a great job of it, especially when he conjures Fiendfyre. The last Harry sees of her is her face melting, rather like a stream of molten gold from the Horcruxes.

Susan, her hair flying around her and the light of battle in her eyes, is breaking the arms of several Death Eaters. It’s probably impossible to know who actually participated in the killing of her aunt, but Harry knows she relishes the chance to hurt Voldemort anyway.

It seems Voldemort summoned _all_ the Death Eaters, which means Crabbe and Goyle are there, as stupid as ever, lumbering blocks that Pansy and Daphne and Millicent take down in a blast of overwhelming magic.

And Malfoy is there. Both Malfoys, actually, but Harry sees Theodore stare like a pointing spaniel at the junior one. He glances sideways at Harry. Harry nods. Theodore can take his revenge, too, but he’ll have to act quickly. He has a very important responsibility once Harry’s shadow-snakes finish destroying Voldemort’s body.

Theodore slashes his wand down, not speaking the incantation aloud. Harry turns to Malfoy to appreciate the effects, since he can’t anticipate them.

Malfoy shrieks and claps his hands to his face. For a minute, Harry thinks Theodore has blinded him, but then he spots Malfoy’s skin rippling and stretching, flowing in several different directions, before clapping back together. It reminds Harry of some of the manipulations he’s done himself with shadow.

By the time Malfoy looks up again, Theodore’s revenge is complete. Malfoy is horribly disfigured, his nose shoved to the side and one corner of his mouth twisting up until he can’t close it properly. His right ear is also higher on his head than the left one. Folds of skin hang over his left eye. His right eye is a squinting hole.

Harry bursts out laughing. Considering Malfoy’s pride in his looks, that will hurt him a lot more than most mundane curses would have.

And Theodore left him alive. Not even Dumbledore could complain about his boyfriend’s morals.

Harry seizes him and kisses him briefly on the cheek. Then he turns back, in time to see the last viper rip Voldemort’s last remaining limb from his body.

“ _Now_ , Theodore!”

Harry has his eyes fixed on the place where Voldemort’s body lay until a moment ago, and so he sees the dark, pathetic spirit as it flees into the air, wailing. Theodore is already darting towards him, fearless as ever.

Harry didn’t want to let him do this, but once Theodore found out about Harry’s little solo trip to destroy Nagini, he insisted.

Theodore holds the cage high, one based on the cage they used to trap Pettigrew all those years ago. The spirit flies into it, and Theodore slams the door shut. Harry can hear the wails, still, which cause distant little pinpricks of irritation in his scar.

Oh, well. If that’s the worst consequence of holding Voldemort captive forever, then Harry will put up with it.

And when they get back to Hogwarts, in triumph, and Harry hides the cage with Voldemort’s spirit inside it in a special version of the Hidden Room, the pinpricks stop.

*

“I must say that I cannot let you simply go about your business, Harry. How I wish I could.”

Harry smiles at Dumbledore. He did know that Harry’s a Horcrux, after all, and he figured out that Voldemort must still be alive because Harry’s not dead. And now he’s holding him at wandpoint in his office.

Even better, Snape is standing off to the side, looking conflicted.

Harry really can’t wait.

“How I hoped that Voldemort would cast the Killing Curse at you and kill the soul-shard,” Dumbledore whispers, his eyes dull. “That you would have the chance to survive and become a more normal person, without the shadows that wrap around you. I only ever wanted the best for you, my dear boy. Friendships that would be true and sustain your soul. A relationship with your godfather once I knew he was innocent. The chance to have adventures. A love that might redeem you.”

Harry snorts. “I don’t need redemption.”

“You do know that there’s no escape, don’t you, Potter?” Snape asks in a strangled voice. “Albus is a much more powerful wizard than you’ll ever be.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “You saw my shadow magic, and you still believe that? And even better,” he adds, shaking his head, “you didn’t take care to confront me in a place _without shadows_.” Dumbledore still has his fire lit, for fuck’s sake. Harry reaches out to the flames.

Dumbledore shouts the beginning of “ _Avada_ —”

Snape draws his wand and Disarms Dumbledore.

Harry wants to stare in astonishment, but Dumbledore is already doing that, and Harry can’t waste the opportunity. He winds shadow around Dumbledore and thickens it the way he did in Umbridge’s office before her punishment, and he’s gone.

Snape turns in a slow circle, his hand still on his wand, his chest heaving, as if he thinks Dumbledore might pop up behind him the way only Harry can manage. “What did you do, Potter? Where is he?”

“Lost in shadow,” Harry says. “ _Permanently_ lost. From now on, he’ll be like an invisible ghost, able to watch and listen from shadows, but not control his own wandering, and not able to affect anything in the material world. He’ll learn all sorts of knowledge and _never be able to interfere with anyone’s life_.” Harry chuckles. “It could conceivably last forever, unless I decide to liberate him someday. And even I would have to find him first, when he could be in any shadow anywhere in the world. I think it’s a grand punishment.”

He cocks his head at Snape. “Why did you do that?”

“I swore an Unbreakable Vow to protect you,” Snape says hoarsely. “Your mother and I were friends, and I hold myself partially responsible for her death. I know that Albus told you I related the prophecy to the Dark Lord. I—could not stand by and let Albus kill you.” He lowers his wand. “Neither can I fight against you. I suppose that you will punish me, now.”

“Hm,” Harry says. “It’s debatable whether you saved my life, but you might have. And what I’m interested in most of all is making sure that you don’t get a chance to bully Neville or any other students again.” He snaps his fingers. “Hold out your left arm.”

Still looking as if he expects Harry to kill him, Snape does. Harry takes hold of his sleeve, pulls it up to expose the Dark Mark, and lays his hand over it. Snape closes his eyes and stiffens in sudden agony as Harry infuses the Mark with a binding shadow.

“What did you do?” Snape whispers, opening his eyes. Most people wouldn’t notice the faint grey edge the fading Dark Mark now has, but Harry thinks Snape does.

“Put in a binding that means that your mind will literally be changed every time you try to say or do something nasty to someone,” Harry tells him. “You won’t be able to speak the words, or think the thoughts. You’ll find your limbs moving to correct someone’s mistake in Potions instead of Vanish their potion or whatever else you were going to do. And you won’t be able to unfairly take points or assign detentions, either. Enjoy your reduced power, Snape.”

Snape is still staring at him when Harry leaves the office, a cheerful whistle in his voice and a jaunty spring in his stride.

*

After the war is done, it seems like everyone in school wants to be marked as Harry’s. Harry is selective, though. He still doesn’t take people like Marietta Edgecombe or Granger or the younger Weasleys (especially since Ginny Weasley is mooning at him when she asks in a way that’s frankly disturbing). He accepts Blaise, who was on the verge of being persuaded by Theodore at one point anyway, and some of the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws in his year who he didn’t have already.

He chose the best lordship oath he could without even knowing it. It’s an honest excuse that he can only mark three people every new moon.

There’s a lot of screeching in the papers about the new Shadow Lord and how he might destroy wizarding society, but equally, a lot of good press for destroying Voldemort. Both his vassals and the Death Eaters captured that night told the story to anyone who would listen, including the tale of the death of the Dementors, none of whom have been seen since then. So Harry and Theodore and his vassals are largely left alone, and it’s easy enough to make the few people who don’t do that disappear.

Even better, Aethelred retired and “left the country for health reasons.” Theodore tells him the news with an absolutely placid face, so that Harry can’t actually tell whether he had anything to do with it. Well, Harry doesn’t care. What matters is that they have the Nott house to themselves, now, and when they take their NEWT’s and leave Hogwarts for the last time, they have a place to live that’s their own.

Where they can ride the Granians Voldemort left there, his evil plan unfulfilled. Where they can read for hours and sleep in the same bed with no intrusions.

Where they can make love as Harry’s eighteenth birthday present.

Theodore is nervous the first time, although Harry can only tell because of the way the bond in the back of his head is vibrating. But Harry runs soothing hands up and down his sides, and spreads his legs for him, and spends a long time swallowing down his cock, and Theodore finally relaxes and smiles.

Harry slides inside him with the help of a lot of lube and charms, but so what? They can do it other ways later. They’ll have months, years, decades to do it in other ways.

Harry takes Theodore on his back in the bed where his father used to sleep, in the house’s master suite. Theodore gasps softly as Harry rises and falls inside him, and shadows whip the walls around them with giddy intensity.

“I dreamed of this, Harry,” Theodore murmurs.

“So did I,” Harry whispers back, and pushes his cock as deep inside Theodore as it’ll go.

It doesn’t seem to take long, in the midst of all the thrusting and sighing and shadows sliding across their skin, but Harry does make sure that Theodore comes first. Theodore clenches down as he does, and Harry follows him in a freefall that makes the shadows dance in an embarrassing way.

But they’ll have all the rest of their lives to get better at this.

Harry lies in the bed beside Theodore when he’s done, still inside him, caressing his face, his mark, the breadth of his shoulders, his lips. Theodore turns and kisses him, lazy, devoted, and Harry smiles. “You called me Harry.”

“I always call people what I feel for them at the moment, my lord.”

Harry laughs. This is Theodore, who still calls Dean Thomas and Fred and George “Weasley One” and “Weasley Two,” who holds himself aloof from most of the other vassals except when they’re dueling, who had less than no fear at being called Harry’s boyfriend and betraying his father even years ago when it was dangerous for him.

Harry loves him the way he is, and wouldn’t change him.

An owl bangs at the window. Harry turns his head. He recognizes Black’s owl, and sends a shadow to chase it into the Owlery. Black is still trying, even though he highly suspects Harry had something to do with Dumbledore’s disappearance. Harry might let him claim the position of godfather someday if he keeps it up.

“Do you ever wonder what the future will bring?” Theodore asks, eyes closed.

“No,” Harry says bluntly, and relaxes next to his vassal, his own eyes slipping shut. “I know it’ll be good for all of us, or I’ll make it so.”

“And that’s why I love you,” Theodore says.

Harry smiles at him. “I love you, too,” he says, and the shadows sway in agreement.

**The End.**


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